Girls und Panzer: Union
by Falkeno
Summary: So after Ooarai's surprise win, Tankery has seen a massive resurgence amongst high school's. Now a new team is joining the sport, there's just one difference which sets them apart from their opponents, half the team are male.
1. A plan is hatched

**August 24th, 2017 - Nagasaki Province Tankery Field**

Miho Nishizumi scanned the horizon from the commander's hatch of her ever-reliable Panzer IV 'still nothing?' she thought to herself, this was highly unusual, most new teams to Sensha-dō were usually aggressive and bold, which meant they usually lost, she had learned that lesson in her first match the previous year against St Gloriana, and yet her opponents were showing a surprising amount of restraint, no idiotic charges, no attempts at staging an obvious ambush, it was all very confusing, then again if she was the enemy commander she would also exercise restraint against the force she was currently a part of.

Miho lowered the binoculars which had been practically glued to her eyes since the match had started and glanced around in order to regain her situational awareness, to her left and right were the other 4 participants on her team, unlike usual however they were not her fellow students from Ooarai, they were representatives of the other well-known teams. To her left representing her old school, Kuromorimine was her older sister Maho in her usual Tiger 1, behind her was Katyusha representing Pravada in her standard T-34-85, to her right representing St Gloriana's and Saunders respectively were Darjeeling and Kay, also in their usual tanks. Miho was glad to be fighting alongside her friends again, but at the same time she knew this would most likely be the last time they would be fighting together, apart from herself and Katyusha, everyone else would be leaving high school and transitioning into university, for them this would be their last match, thankfully she knew that there would be no last-minute moments of glory-seeking, they had done enough of that in the match against selection university earlier in the summer, for them this would be on last battle before handing over to their appointed replacements at the start of the next school year, so she could expect them to fight at their best before they left. There was just one problem with that sentiment, there was still no opponents for them to fight.

"Has anyone got anything?" Miho asked over the radio, clearly puzzled as to why their opponents had not engaged them yet.

"No, It's all very confusing, I'd have expected them to have tried something by now" replied Maho, who had also lowered her binoculars and was currently pouring over a map of the playing field as if looking for the answer to their opponent's peculiar behaviour.

"Bah, they are just too scared of Katyusha to dare challenge me!" bellowed Katyusha, who seemed to be the least concerned as to what their opponents were doing.

"Have you ever heard of the proverb, Discretion is the better part of valour? wouldn't you say Kay-chan" was Darjeeling's soft-spoken response to the brash Katyusha, whilst also trying to provoke a response from the unusually quiet Kay, who hadn't lowered her binoculars since the start of the match.

"hm, I wasn't listening what were you talking abo..., Tank! to our right, among the bushes!" kay began lazily before regaining her familiar energy upon finally spotting a target, which prompted Miho to yank her binoculars back up to her eyes, then she saw it, the familiar shape of a Crusader III, positioned amongst a clump of bushes, so close in fact that she could even see the commander, but couldn't make out a face on account of the beret, goggles and scarf doing a pretty good job of concealing it, that and she didn't get a good look at it in the first place, due the Crusader, upon realising it had been spotted immediately making a run for it. Unfortunately for the crusader it had very few escape routes available to it, in front of it was a thick copse of trees complete with thick hedges and rocks, which was impassable, left was out because that was where Miho and the rest of her team were, on its right was another impassable copse of trees and to it's rear was open ground, which would leave it a sitting duck. The only avenue of escape left for it was to follow the same course as Miho and the rest of the compound team through a gap between the two groups of trees, but according to their maps, this route just lead to more open ground and steep hill, therefore the only chance of escape for the crusader was to try and outrun them, and Miho and the rest of the compound team knew it.

"Mako-san, follow that Crusader, don't let it escape" Miho ordered her driver, Mako simply grunting a reply and she manoeuvred their Panzer IV to pursue, as did all of the other tanks around them, whilst the Crusader continued its dash for freedom, with Miho and the compound team hot on its heels, barely keeping up with it, which was impressive. Roaring out of the gap the Crusader dashed towards the hill, before dropping into a wide trench which lay in front of the hill, at first, it looked like the crusader was going to simply, and probably stupidly charge up the hill, leaving itself exposed to the combined fire of five tanks, but as she closed on the hill the crusader still hadn't emerged from the depression.

"Mako-san halt!" Miho shouted, Mako, responding by immediately stamping on the brakes bringing the 25-ton panzer to a sudden halt, the other tanks doing also, she had to give her opponents credit, she'd nearly fallen for the bait, even with its 6-pounder the Crusader could still knock-out any of their tanks, even Maho's Tiger if it was close enough and especially if it had a shot at the thinner lower plate, which it would have from its position in the trench, whilst also being safe from return fire.

"Ok, Darjeeling, Kay, Flank right, Miho and Katyusha will flank left, I'll make some noise to cover you whilst you move, we need to deal with them quickly before the rest of them come to help them" Maho announced, speed was of the essence if they could remove one tank from play right now, they could dictate the course of the battle how they wanted to, and perhaps provoke a response out of Union, the team they were facing, Miho though was deep in thought, Union clearly weren't amateurs, they'd done their homework, but they'd let their Crusader get spotted, it didn't make sense, if they'd sent it to shadow them, it would have been behind them, yet it had been out in front, why though?, and the hill in front of them was bare, no cover for even a tankette, her pondering was interrupted however by Maho's Tiger disappearing in a cloud of smoke and fire.

* * *

 **July 20th, 2017 - Union school carrier**

It was the grey light of dawn when Tom Lynch rolled out of the pit, that he referred to as a bed, quickly pulling on the uniform of Union Technical High School, a multinational mixed gender High School, or rather Japan's only multinational mixed gender High School, which was why a British national like Tom was attending. Quickly locking his door behind him, he braced himself for the next part of his morning.

"Good morning Tom, did you sleep well?" sarcastically asked the girl perched on the wall outside his apartment, her American accent cutting into Tom's still drowsy mind like a chainsaw, and he was sober.

"Good morning Kyla, yes I did sleep well" Tom answered, turning to face his friend, who was busy taking a bite out of what appeared to be a homemade breakfast burrito, "You had better have bought one for me!" He added, as usual, he'd skipped making breakfast due to having overslept, as always.

"No, why would I have" Kyla responded, before digging another burrito out of her jacket, and handing it carefully over to a grateful Tom, they'd known each other for over two years now and had developed a routine, She'd make breakfast for the two of them, as Tom wouldn't be able to make himself breakfast, due to him oversleeping, and in return Tom would handle dinner for both of them, as she would be too tired in the evenings, it was a mutually beneficial arrangement, one which had often been confused with a relationship, but in truth they were just really good friends.

"So do you have any idea why we've been called in," Tom asked swallowing a mouthful as they walked, whilst the new school year hadn't started yet, they had been called to see the headteacher, as to why though they hadn't a clue between them, and they were the new heads of Union's Technical Department, the schools most known and prized area of speciality, so they could be sure that it involved the department, as both of them, had been summoned.

Half an hour later the two of them found themselves in the office of their headteacher, Miss Kobayashi, although she prefered to be called by Suki, her first name, she was quite informal around her students, which was why she was liked by everyone at the school.

"Ah Kyla, Tom, sorry I've dragged you in here at this time, I just need to speak to you before you take control of the department, but first, Kyla, I need some information regarding the girls in the department" Suki explained, moving from her office window to perching on her desk, which only made them more curious.

"What do you need to know Suki? Kyla asked moving to sit further forward in her chair, Tom just sat back and watched not really interested, he wasn't the one being asked questions after all.

"I need to know whether any of the girls in the department would be interested in taking part in next years Sensha-dō Tournament?" Suki asked, causing Tom to suddenly take an interest in the conversation, whilst Tanks were considered feminine in Japan, he loved them, it was just something about the mechanical brutality that a tank encapsulated, he'd even watched last year's championship, plus they were cool as all hell.

"Well whilst I and a handful of others would be interested, there isn't enough for a team, even just for five crews" Kyla answered, the disappointment in her voice was noticeable.

"Well, that's unfortunate, I'm only asking because the league is pestering me to see if we can field a team, their short one for next year, and I was really looking forward to showing Shiho Nishizumi and Chiyo Shimada what I think of their styles, I guess I'll have to tell them no, but I'll leave that until I have everything else in order first" Suki sighed, It was well known that Suki had partaken in Sensha-dō, or as most people in the west called it, Tankery, and that she had experienced first hand the Nishizumi and Shimada styles. "But it can't be helped, so let's get down to business shall we" she continued getting back on topic, and so for the next hour they discussed general information regarding the technical department, what they needed to know and drew up plans for the year, all the while though Tom's mind was working, working out a way to solve the problem of the lack of interest regarding Tankery. A couple of hours later Kyla found herself waiting in her place for Tom to show up, he was never this late, she was hungry and tired, and starting to get annoyed. Finally, though there was a knock at the door, which Kyla quickly moved to open it, revealing Tom carrying a fully loaded rucksack.

"Sorry I'm late, I lost track of time, but I think you'll like what I found" Gasped Tom, clearly he'd ran from his place to Kyla's, a grin plastered all over his face.

* * *

The next morning found Tom and Kyla once again in Suki's office, both grinning away, which had intrigued her, as she knew from experience that the only time these two grinned like this, it meant they had a plan in mind, the fact they wanted to fill her in on it was all the more intriguing.

"So are you going to tell me what has got you two so happy about, or are you going to make me ask you?" Suki questioned.

"Remember how you said that you wanted to show up the big tankery families?" Tom queried taking the lead, pausing to let Suki, answer, which she did with a curt nod, before continuing "Well, I started thinking about a way to fix your problem, and I have, you see if you dig back far enough you find that the sport which is rather popular in this country, actually has a dark origin story. You see tankery wasn't started as a sport to teach girls skills beneficial for motherhood, actually, it was started as a way to train tank crews in the event of a Soviet invasion if the cold war turned hot, but in order to hide what they were actually doing the authorities who organised it only picked girls to partake in the sport, they did, however, leave a loophole in the rules which allowed boys to partake as well, but when the JSDF was formed the need for trained tankers was filled, but they couldn't well end the sport suddenly, because unexpectedly the sport had proved popular, even leading to other countries starting their own versions, so they left it running and covered their tracks as best they could" Tom explained, leaving Suki very confused.

"I don't quite follow" Suki announced getting to her feet.

"Well as it turns out the loophole about boys partaking in tankery is still there, meaning we can field a co-ed team, without breaking any rules" Kyla added pausing to let Suki take the information in before continuing, "and It'll be doubly insulting as the big families, hate the prospect of boys 'defiling' the sport more than they hate each other, and because you can't implement new rules that haven't been under a minimum of a years consultation, they can't plug it because no one knows about it other than us"

"So all we need you to do is ok this little scheme of ours, we can put the expense of buying the tanks under the technical departments budget because we'll need to buy scrap tanks to keep it off the tankery authority's radar, so we can call them long-term projects as we're going to need to restore and maintain them, and I'm sure we can recruit enough people to form a team from the department, that and that you don't tell the authority we can field a team until the last possible moment, that way we can be sure they won't ask too many questions" Tom concluded, Suki responded by walking over to the window, turning her back on Tom and Kyla in the process.

"You plan is the most despicable, downright dishonest and utterly disgraceful plan I have ever heard" Suki exclaimed, pausing to catch her breath, before turning to face them once again, "When do we start!" beamed Suki, wearing a grin as big as the ones Tom and Kyla had.

"Well were docking in Nagasaki in a few days to bring aboard the new students and there's a reclamation yard which just so happens to stock old tanks, permission to go ashore and collect some 'work projects'?" Tom requested, it was more of a formality, he already knew what the answer was going to be.

* * *

 **July 23rd, 2017 - Nagasaki**

2 Days later Tom and Kyla found themselves walking through Nagasaki's oldest reclamation yard, their objective was simple, find 5 tanks that they could form a minimum team with, other than that they had the freedom to choose what they picked, the yard sold everything at scrap value according to its weight, and money wasn't much of a concern either, Unions technical department raked in a considerable amount of income yearly, and after nearly twenty years of doing so, Union's cash reserves were quite full, only Saunders beat them, but that was because they had wealthy benefactors. Immediately they found a large group of Renault Ft's, which meant they were on the right track but didn't stop to look, then they came across a row of British cruiser tanks, mostly old Mark IV's, better than the Ft's but still not what they were looking for, however as they were about to continue Tom noticed one of the tanks, covered under an old looking tarpaulin was bigger than the others.

"Hey Kyla, give me a hand with this will you," He asked moving to remove the tarpaulin, the ropes were old but still held tight, but with the assistance of Kyla's trusty pocket knife they soon gave up their prize, and what a prize it was, "Oh hello there" Muttered Tom, as he stared at the Crusader III, which despite the worn and chipped paint still looked in good condition.

"Tracks are in good condition, and none of the hatches are open so, it shouldn't be too bad inside" Kyla announced, moving to open the commander's hatch "yeah good inside as well, wonder why it's here, it looks pretty good" she added.

"I know why" stated Tom, drawing her attention to the now open engine compartment, "Its engines knackered, looks like a piston blew a hole in the crankcase, and the engine tore itself to bits" He explained, this made sense, crusaders used the Nuffield Liberty engine, a rather rare and expensive motor, the original owners probably couldn't afford to replace it and so had gotten rid of it, "rest of its fine though, all it needs though is a new engine, a service and some paint, and it'll be as good as new" Tom finished, lowering the engine covers back into place, 1 down 4 to go.

Then they came across a pair of rusted Cromwell's both of which would be suitable, if one wasn't missing its turret, and the other was missing most of its engine compartment, clearly someone had been through with a cutting torch and no skills of how to use it, they could have made one complete tank using the two, but they only had a few weeks to get 5 tanks ready and they didn't have the time, but they made a note of them, as they might be useful in the future, nearby also lay another tank with some potential, a rather worn out looking Stug IV, minus its suspension, again the lack of time meant they couldn't replace it, so they made another note and moved on. After about another fifteen minutes of fruitless searching, Kyla hit pay dirt.

"Hey Tom, look what I found" She hollered, which brought Tom over from a rather large pile of scrap, to find Kyla looking over a rather mauled, but otherwise intact SU-100 tank destroyer, minus its gun, which Tom had noticed lying off to one side which was how he'd know it was an SU-100 and not a SU-85, "Yes I know its a bit battered, but complete and it's Russian so it probably still works, the casemate roof is rusted through however, so we'll have to replace it and the protective layers inside, and most of the interior as well, but its in better condition than some of this stuff" Kyla added, dusting herself off.

"So that's Two down" Tom affirmed, before noticing a familiar shape poking out from behind a pile of scrap, near to where the SU-100's gun lay, "and I think I just found three" he announced, moving to confirm what he'd spotted, letting out a cackle of glee when he did, as there before him stood, under a protective tarpaulin, an iconic M4 Sherman, and by the HVSS suspension and front plate, an M4A3E8, An Easy Eight, the most powerful of the American Sherman variants.

"Nice, there's just one problem with it" Kyla observed, drawing Toms attention to a rather obvious issue, "there isn't a turret!" she highlighted, it was rather obvious.

"Relax, there's bound to be a turret for it somewhere in this place" Tom countered, and sure enough within five minutes, they'd found a suitable turret and gun to make the easy eight complete. That just left them looking for two tanks to find, and before them lay a row of sheds, and then Kyla asked a very interesting question.

"Hey, so since we'll both be partaking in the matches themselves, but what are we going to command?" Kyla questioned from inside one of the sheds, it had already been decided that they would command a tank each in the team, but they hadn't given any thought as to what they wanted to command.

"I don't know, something fast like the Crusader, but with a much better gun, I want to do some damage; Why do you ask" Tom replied, stepping out of another shed.

"Because I just found mine" Kyla grinned, throwing the shed door fully open, revealing the unmistakable form of an M18 Hellcat tank destroyer, the fastest armoured vehicle of WW2, "and if I wasn't being clear, Dibs!" she added, leaving Tom two options, argue with her, which would hand her the win on a platter, or walk away and hope that karma gave Kyla her just deserts, but from the lack of rust on the Hellcat, he doubted that as he looked for which shed to try next, leaving Kyla to inspect her prize, it was perfect, all it needed was some fresh paint, a service and a roof on the turret and it would be good to go, even the engine looked in a decent condition, and by the cobwebs she guessed it had been here for a while, which explained why no one had grabbed it. Tom meanwhile having checked two shed in the time that Kyla had been giving the Hellcat the once over, was starting to get annoyed, but as he flung open the doors of shed number three, he realised that since Karma couldn't get to Kyla via the Hellcat, it had decided to get her by proxy, which was a long way of saying, that karma had just firmly placed itself on Tom's side.

"Hey Kyla, you can keep the Hellcat!" He chirped, causing Kyla some concern, Tom only spoke like that when he knew something she didn't, and with him surrendering the Hellcat without a fight was even more concerning; quickly she found the barn Tom was in, and her concerns were justified, "Dibs!" Tom exclaimed as he perched upon the turret, of an equally well preserved and intimidating looking A34 Comet.

* * *

 **Authors notes**

 **I hope you enjoy this little idea of mine that's been bouncing around my brain since watching the show for the first time in 2012 (and it's been bugging me ever since), I'm using a western school year system because I can't wrap my head around Japan's, and if you think the whole idea of Union finding good tanks in a scrap yard is a bit too unrealistic, its a show about high school students competing in tank battles, whilst living on giant aircraft carrier shaped ships, and Oorai found an even rarer Tiger P on their own ship, so please cut me some slack, besides I wanted cool/awesome tanks (we'll get to those later, promise).**

 **But anyway please feel free to review as I find your opinions and views actually interesting and useful.**


	2. Problems and solutions

**July 30th, 2017 - Union Technical Department Workshop**

Kyla could only smile at the hive of activity that was Union's workshop, whilst the school year hadn't started yet, there hadn't been a shortage of volunteers to help fix up the tanks, a group of first years being taught by older second and third years how to fix mechanical equipment, with her Hellcat and Tom's Comet serving as instructional pieces, they needed the least complex work, so it was a good ease in for the new hands. On the other side of the workshop lay the SU-100 and Easy Eight, being worked on by the more experienced students, the Easy Eight was still minus its turret, that was next to it, suspended by a supporting frame, it was easier to repair both separately, due to the lack of space inside, the SU-100 was also in a similar state, the old casemate roof was gone, and the new one was waiting until after all the internal work had been finished to be fitted, at least they had managed to fit the gun, which hadn't been fitted that morning, when she and a few other students had gone on yet another excursion to yet another scrapyard to find an engine for the Crusader, which was sitting in the garage next door, having just been painted it was being kept away from the mess of the workshop, nothing else needed doing to it, other than fitting a replacement engine for the piece of scrap they'd yanked out of it the morning after they'd smuggled the tanks aboard under cover of night, and for a week she'd been visiting scrapyards and reclamation yards, in the vain hope they'd find an engine laying around.

"Afternoon Kyla, how was today's excursion?" asked Jonas Balk, a German Third-year student, engine specialist and speed freak, as he pulled himself out of the SU-100's engine bay, not even noticing that he was caked in oil and dirt.

"Eh, the usual, we did get a Meteor though, so if the Comet needs a new engine we have one spare, do me a favor and give it a look when you're free will you, It's in the truck for you, and leave it next to the Crusader when you're finished, Please" Kyla answered tiredly, gesturing to the old Bedford OXD lorry, one of the smaller vehicles in Unions possession, she'd been on the go for hours, and the Bedford hadn't helped, so she clearly could do with a break. Fortunately, Jonas was eager to get a look at the Meteor and simply responded by giving a curt nod, before jumping off the back of the tank to go grab his two fellow speed freaks, all the while grinning like a kid on Christmas.

Continuing out of the back of the workshop, Kyla found herself in a corridor, with rooms attached to it, rooms for working on designs and blueprints, locker rooms, and even a large classroom for teaching lessons, although Union grade its students on practical work rather than exams, so it was rarely used. Finally, though she reached the room she wanted, the office she and Tom shared as department heads, opening the door, Kyla found Tom sat at his desk working at his laptop, looking rather frazzled, looking up Tom noticed Kyla and silently voiced his mood, by letting his head fall to the table, Kyla knew instantly what this meant.

"The usual?" Kyla queried, moving to a small fridge they'd installed to keep drinks and snacks in, a privilege they enjoyed as department heads was the use of the office, which no-one was allowed in when neither of them were present meant, so they didn't have to worry about people coming in and taking stuff without their permission.

"Yeah, another dead end, the only way we're going to get an engine for the Crusader is to buy a brand new one" Tom sighed as Kyla handed him a can of Coke, there was a major reason they couldn't do that, and that was they were trying to do this thing under the radar of the Tankery authority, and buying an engine from a major manufacturer would get their attention, especially since the manufacturer was in part owned by St Gloriana's. "How was your day?" He asked, looking to see if she had anything good to tell him.

"Well, we've got a spare engine for the Comet, just in case we need one, and I found a Sherman Firefly in a decent state there as well, I checked and it's a hybrid version, so engines aren't going to be hard to find either" She replied, pulling the tab and taking a deep gulp.

"Well, that's another maybe to get, if we pull this off that is!" Tom murmured, he was beginning to think his bright idea was a mistake, that Crusader was giving his constant headaches, and they had used most of the budget to get it, so they couldn't buy another one in its place.

* * *

For about an hour the two talked, just unwinding and bouncing ideas around, before they decided to see how everyone else was getting on, arriving back in the workshop, they quickly found themselves draw to an exited conversation around the Comets engine bay.

"So, what got you lot excited?" Tom questioned, which announced their presence to everyone.

"You've found a gem here" Responded one of the third year students, who Tom recognized as Jacob Vinter, a Danish student, who Tom had picked as his driver, "This is a Meteor Mark IVC, it's got 50 more horsepower than the standard engine, which means if we sure up the suspension and disable the limiter, we can get this thing up to over 40mph" Jacob continued eagerly, gesturing at a much cleaner looking engine, whilst not a speed freak, the idea of speeding around in a tank with what amounted to a sawn-off17-pounder was an attractive one "We'll need to pull it apart and give it a check-up, but it's all here and its barely run in so it should work" he added.

"Well at least we've gotten some good news today, and we might not need that spare Meteor after all" Kyla mused, glancing around Kyla noticed something "Hey where's Jonas? I'd have thought he'd be here" Kyla queried.

"He went off to look at that meteor and hasn't been back since; He was making a racket a while back though" Shouted one of the girls working on the Easy Eight, Kyla and Tom gave their thanks and went off to find out where he'd gone, noticing the lorry had been moved, they moved to check the garage, finding it empty apart from the Bedford.

"What the fuck! where's the Crusader?" Tom fumed, Jonas and his friends slinking off from work was one thing, but they'd taken the Crusader and probably the Meteor with them; if people saw the Crusader, the cat would get out of the bag quickly.

"Well they've taken one of the tank transporters as well, and since they have trackers on them we should be able to find them" Kyla pointed out, as she climbed into the passenger seat of a nearby Land Rover, Tom quickly jumped in the driver's seat and sped off quickly following Kyla's directions.

However, instead of heading into the residential area, they found themselves going off-road, and after about 10 minutes they found themselves in an open field, well away from any prying eyes and within an area that they tested equipment in, so any noise would be normal, with the transporter parked off to one side, curiously though the ramps were lowered and there was a large tarpaulin lying on the trailer.

"Where the hell are they?" Kyla muttered, only to be answered by the Crusader roaring past, with Jonas perched on the turret grinning madly, quickly it roared to the other end of the field turned quickly and raced back towards them, only this time without the transporter blocking their view, they noticed Tom and Kyla, with looks of thunder on their faces, and quickly slammed on the brakes, stopping just short of them.

"What the fuck are you doing?" Tom roared, which caught Jonas off-guard, Tom wasn't the angry type, so the sudden fury was unexpected.

"Well, you see we were putting the engine away, when Gavin pointed out that when they tested the Meteor, they used a Crusader, and since we needed to test the engine, we decided to repeat the original test" Jonas offered, as he climbed out of the turret, followed by the muscular figure of Gavin Bishop, a Brit like Tom, whilst the skinny figure of Dutchman Lex Gelens, climbed out the driver's seat. Tom meanwhile was about to tear the three apart, when he realized something, they couldn't find a liberty engine for the Crusader, but the Meteor was more powerful, more reliable, easier to maintain and if what Jonas said was true, perfectly legal by Tankery standards.

"Well luckily for you, you Muppets have accidentally solved the Crusaders engine problem, and probably saved me from another day worth of headaches" Tom conceded, getting confused looks from everyone in response, "and since you solved it, and the three of you are already familiar with it, you three can crew the Crusader in the team" he continued, which left Kyla puzzled, and Jonas and his friends grinning like kids in a sweetshop "But if you do it again, I won't be so forgiving next time!" Tom warned, before turning back to the Land Rover.

"Well that just happened, now you three load the Crusader back up and get it back to the garage before he changes his mind" Kyla informed them, before turning to leave "Oh and give it a clean while you're at it" Kyla mentioned, drawing their attention back to the filthy Crusader.

* * *

 **Authors Notes**

 **So this might be a bit rushed, I've been ill and have just been a catching up on another project (which I'm losing the will to work on), so if anyone who has anything to improve this chapter, please tell me and I'll act on it. But anyway thanks for reading this and I hope you're enjoying it.**


	3. Training and Trouble

**August 9th, 2017 - Union proving grounds**

Tom scanned the horizon before him, searching for a target, looking for any disturbance, then he saw it an object poking out from the nearby tree line, quickly he activated his microphone.

"Target bearing 311, range 600, 1 round on my mark" He ordered, the two men below him moving to respond.

"Gun ready" Declared his Canadian loader Robert Marlin, a second-year student, Tom had pegged as his successor; already grasping another shell.

"Target acquired, waiting for the shot" his German gunner, Matthäus Bergmann, better known as Matt, another second-year student.

"Matt, let her rip!" Tom declared, bracing as the Comet barked its round, which tore through the air before striking its target, with the radio crackling to life seconds later.

"Congratulations boys, you've successfully redecorated the last target" Kyla informed them, as the now paint covered target dropped from view, "now get back here so we can reset for the easy eight" Kyla added.

"Got it, see you in twenty" Tom replied, grinning like mad.

* * *

Kyla sighed as she climbed down from the observation platform, Tom and his crew were impressive, just as good as her own crew; reaching the bottom she walked across the clearing which was serving as an assembly area, the intimidating sight of the SU-100, under the command of Marcus Barbot, a second year French student and expert painter who behind a tough exterior was actually the friendliest guy around, chatting with his boyfriend and fellow painter, who was serving as his gunner, with the two others painters who made up the rest of his crew sitting nearby; next to them, of course, were Jonas and his speed freak friends, no doubt disusing optimal engine setups over the Crusaders engine bay; then there were the kids as she and Tom called them, whilst most crews were made up of Second and Third years, the Easy eight was crewed by a crew of all female second-year students, under the command of the bookish Gin Fujii, not an engineer but a researcher and a lover of the dreary romance novels which made Kyla want to sleep, give her an action story any day of the week.

Finally, though she reached her baby, the Hellcat, a folding protective roof covering what had once been an open turret, with her Australian gunner Eve Harris reclining on the engine deck, chatting with their French loader, Macey Lambert, whilst her driver, a fine Swedish girl by the name of Emma Hellberg, sat reading the drivers manual for what seemed the twentieth time.

"Hey Girls, what have I missed?" Kyla asked, mostly to Eve and Macey, Emma was lost in the manual.

"Eh, nothing much, Macey was just telling me about this guy she's been thinking of asking out since last year, he's in our English class, I'd say he's about an 8 out of..." Eve began to explain only to be cut off by Kyla's phone starting to ring, which Kyla quickly answered, she'd rather deal with a phone call than listen to people discuss their love lives, she really wasn't interested in men to the degree her friends were, rather like Tom was with girls, both were simply happy being single.

"Hello Kyla its Suki, I need you and Tom to get to my office ASAP, we have a slight problem! I tried calling Tom but that Comet meant I couldn't hear a word he said so grab him on the way will you" Suki explained before hanging up before Kyla could say anything other than a greeting.

"Guys I've got to go, tell Jonas to take over supervising, I'll be back soon" Kyla explained, before climbing into a nearby Land Rover, making a detour to pick up Tom along the way.

* * *

When Tom and Kyla arrived in Suki's office, they were met with the sight of their headteacher wearing a grove into the floor with her pacing.

"Finally, take a look at this!" Suki exclaimed turning her monitor on the next pass of her desk, before going back to pacing, Tom quickly read the E-mail which had Suki so worked up, it was from the Tankery board explaining that they wished to host an exhibition match between Union and a Compound team from the leading Tankery teams on the 24th of August, which would blow the whole scheme apart, when they saw that half the team was boys they would block Union from participating in this year's tournament, and no doubt close the loophole, Tom had been gambling on them being desperate enough to give them a place no questions asked, and as spanners in the works went, this was a monkey wrench, quickly Tom racked his brains, what would Shiho Nishizumi do in this situation, and then the answer hit him.

"Ok, email them back offering to make this match a test to prove that we are ready for the tournament, saying that If we lose we won't compete. If we play this right we can force them to give us the place if we win" Tom decided, as on the moment plans went it wasn't a bad one.

"Ok, and how are we going to smuggle you and the other guys into the match? and how are we going to keep you hidden the whole time?" Suki countered, her brain throwing up all kinds of issues with Tom's plan, however before Tom could come up with an answer better than going in drag, Kyla entered the conversation.

"We can smuggle them in as mechanics, and during the match, we can cover our faces so no one can see that some of us have beards" Kyla offered, pointing out the thin brown beard on Tom's chin.

"And we could have some of the girls from the drama society come along as well, to make up the numbers and fool the judges" Suki added, finally stopping pacing and getting her head back in the positive, "Alright we have a plan, I'll email them back and set the wheels in motion, you pair get the team ready, we can't lose this match" she continued.

"Don't worry Suki, we'll think of something" Tom explained, as he and Kyla turned to leave.

* * *

Many hours later found Tom and Kyla back at hers looking back at the compound teams earlier match against selection, as well as every match a new team had played in the last ten years.

"Well, it seems that every time someone new plays their first match they either try and spring an ambush, which always fails because it's obvious as all hell, or charge them suicidally. If we're going to do this we need to be smart about it" Tom stated, finally surfacing from his Laptop for the first time in what seemed like hours, "what do you think?" he asked only to receive the sounds of Kyla snoring behind him, turning from his position on the floor, Tom found Kyla fast asleep, her head resting on a soft cushion, her laptop almost failing from her sleeping clutches, sighing to himself Tom picked up her computer put it in sleep mode and on charge, before spreading a nearby blanket over her sleeping form, then collected his things and locked her flat, before posting her key through the mail box, glancing at his watch, he saw it was one in the morning, knowing full well he was going to regret this in the morning.

* * *

 **Authors Notes**

 **Not as long as I usually do but I'm frequently tired at the moment which is affecting my output, luckily college is on Easter break so I'll be able to catch up on some sleep, don't worry I'll make it up next time, (there still some work to do before the Union v Compound Match).**


	4. Setting the ball rolling

**August 23rd, 2017 - Union Proving grounds**

Kyla clung to the rim of her turret hatch as her Hellcat sprinted around the course they'd laid out, Emma was giving it all the tank destroyer had, and as they slid around a turn, Kyla swore she felt one of the tracks lift of from the ground, there was a point to this exercise however, as Union were fielding a force of mostly fast moving and hard-hitting tanks with little armor, it had been decided to practice firing accurately on the move, and for that purpose the Hellcat and the Comet had been fitted with a form of gun stabilization system, It wasn't exactly historical, but as they were going to be relying on speed to avoid being hit, it was a necessary one and didn't break any rules so it was legal.

"Target ahead, Range 300 and closing Eve you know the drill" Kyla ordered as the Hellcat sped along, Eve didn't even wait for the order to fire, they'd been at this for days, and in that time, had gone from being unable to hit the broadside of a barn, to being able to put a round square on the target 4 out of 5 times, and as the shot hit home, it showed. "Ok girls one more then we're done" Kyla noted as Emma slid the Hellcat around the final bend, the last target came into view, and as this was a moving target by far the most difficult, ahead of the target was the SU-100, which as its gun was casemate mounted, wasn't suited to firing on the move, was serving as the target tug, and its remain crew as the observers scoring the other crews runs.

"C'mon Eve, nail that thing!" Macey shouted above the roar of the Hellcats engine, Eve simply breathed, locked up the target, and when the moment was right pulled the trigger, sending a round spinning towards its mark, landing near the bullseye producing a noticeable splatter of paint, Kyla could only breathe a sigh of relief, this was had been the last run before their exhibition match, and it had been nearly perfect, just as the Hellcat crossed the line and began to slow, the radio beside Kyla crackled to life.

"Good shooting girls, put that cat to bed and then yourselves, you need to be rested for tomorrow" Suki ordered, who had been watching for hours with pride as their little force proved to her that they could win tomorrows match, turning away Suki looked at her tablet, the screen listing the information for tomorrows match, the time, the place, and most importantly the confirmation that Shiho Nishizumi would be attending, and even better she'd be the one signing off on the confirmation of their participation in this year's tournament, Suki was going to enjoy that immensely.

* * *

Gin Fujii fidgeted nervously in her seat as she waited for the briefing, she wasn't the most confident person normally, and the prospect of participating in a live, and probably televised event wasn't helping, eventually though Tom and Kyla arrived and the briefing began.

"Alright here's the deal Tomorrow we're going up against a team of veteran crews, who have at least a years' worth of experience each" Kyla began, Gin wasn't feeling any better. "However, since they've played before, we have a good idea what their expecting and what they'll do" She added, as Tom bought up a map in the classroom which was serving as the briefing room.

"We're playing on the Nagasaki Province Tankery Field, it consists of thick woods, uneven terrane and wide-open spaces, suitable for suicide charges" Tom explained, "which is why we're going to use it to our advantage, together myself and Kyla have come up with a plan, which shall be referred to as Operation: Blacksmith" Tom continued, pausing to wait for the obvious question regarding the name, which fell on Marcus to ask.

"Blacksmith? what kind of name is that?" Marcus asked, Tom however, had the answer.

"It's because of the radio callsigns we've chosen, there will be three separate forces in play for the match, Force 1, callsign Furnace, will be the Crusader, your job is to find the enemy force, which will be referred to as Metal" Tom described only for Jonas this time to interrupt him.

"Why the codenames?" He asked, a good question as they didn't seem necessary.

"Well, their mostly just so that anyone reading the transcripts can't work out what we're saying, I don't trust Saunders to pass up a chance to cheat, not after last year" Kyla explained, it had been decided to scramble their radio messages weeks prior so that unwanted ears couldn't listen in.

"Anyway, as I was saying, Force 2, callsign Hammer will consist of the SU-100 and the Easy eight under Marcus' command, and force 3, Callsign Anvil will consist of the Comet and the Hellcat, under mine and Kyla's command" Tom continued pausing to wait for any interruptions, with Gin this time being the one to raise her hand.

"What is the plan exactly?" Gin asked uncertainly, causing sly grins to form on Tom's and Kyla's faces.

"To borrow the line of one Edmund Blackadder, a plan as cunning as a fox, who's just been appointed professor of cunning at Oxford University" Tom replied, causing Gin and the others some confusion, but as Tom and Kyla elaborated, all became clear, and as plans went, it was defiantly a cunning one.

* * *

 **August 24th, 2017 - Nagasaki Province Tankery Field, Preparation area**

The garage set aside for Unions team was a hive of activity, Tanks were being loaded with shells, engines were being tuned, tracks were being tightened, and fuel tanks were being filled. Had this been any other day Tom would have been relaxed, but this wasn't any other day, one slip up, one wrong word and the plan would be exposed and all their hard work would be for naught, and Tom felt that in his stomach, it didn't help that he had the hard job, officially Tom and the other lads were mechanic's would had been drafted in to cover the maintenance of the tanks, whilst the girls, Kyla and Gin's crews plus the girls from the drama society, were playing the part of the teams crews, enjoying the attractions and the food on offer, whilst Tom was coved oil and dirt, the only thing keeping him and the rest of the lads from complaining was that this was necessary for the plan to succeed.

"Heads up guys, we've got incoming" Matt informed them as he entered into the garage, Tom had made sure that there was always someone on lookout, just in case of the judges showing up unannounced, and that decision had just proved itself useful.

"Ok people you know the drill" Tom ordered as he grabbed a torch and slid below the Hellcat, and began to check the underside for damage, he knew there wasn't any but it was better to look busy in front of the judges.

"And here is our lineup, don't mind the boys, they've just been drafted in to perform maintenance for the girls today" Suki explained as she led the judges into the garage, the judges simply nodded before heading to check the tanks for illegal modifications, leaving Suki standing in the doorway watching them like a hawk, it wasn't the judges that had Suki concerned though, that honor fell to the other adult in the room, who chose that moment to voice her opinion.

"Can't you even get proper maintenance? if this is what your fielding, my daughter will crush you with ease" Shiho Nishizumi spat, before turning to face Suki, "You have these... Boys, performing maintenance on the equipment of their betters, it is disgusting" She added, putting emphasis on the word 'Boys', Shiho was as Tom described a total Feminazi, which probably explained why her marriage was notoriously strained, it was wide knowledge that her husband had only stuck with her for the sake of their daughters, and Suki was tempted to agree with him, she'd known Shiho in school and even then she'd had a hatred of the opposite sex, which had only gotten worse with age, Tom meanwhile simply took a deep breath, recalled the lines he had memorized for this exact purpose and when he was ready pushed himself out from under the tank.

"Yeah well we don't want to be hear either, personally I don't even want to have anything to do with this clown show, I'd rather be in bed getting some sleep than here caked up to my elbows in shit" Tom interrupted as he got to his feet, casually tossing the torch into a nearby tool box, as the other boys voiced their agreement with him the whole think was an act, but if Shiho thought the boys didn't want to be here, she wouldn't care that they were.

"Who is this... Boy" Shiho growled, Tom however simply stared at her before answering.

"Tom Lynch, third-year student" Tom replied, as Suki watched the exchange, the longer Shiho was here, the higher the risk of being exposed, Shiho however, realizing that Tom wasn't backing down as easily as she expected, simply turned her attention to the judges, who had finished their inspections.

"Are they any illegal modifications?" Shiho asked, the judges shook their heads in response as they moved to leave, Shiho then turned her attention back to Suki, "Well then everything is in order for the match it appears" She announced as she turned to leave, "And get some proper mechanics, not these excuses" She added spitefully, only for the boys to respond by whistling an infamous tune, regarding Hitler, severed body part and the Albert hall, causing Shiho to stop and turn before quickening her pace; Suki however, watched her leave and when the coast was clear shot the boys a thumbs up, before following the judges out.

"Well that went well" Jonas mused, as the lads gave each other high fives, now all they had to do was win the match, a match against representatives from the top 5 tankery teams, the odds weren't in their favour.

* * *

 **Authors Notes**

 **So next time its Union v the Compound team, I hope you're looking forward to it.**

 **Anyway on a side note at some point I'm going to be giving the tanks names, originally I was going to pick some names myself, but I've decided to open it up to you guys (and gals), just some rules, the names have to be non-insulting/rude and have to reflect the nation of the vehicle, I.e British, Amercian, Russian and German (we'll get to those later) and its role, feel free to PM me some names and feel free to say which tanks you would like them to be for if you want, call it some interaction between me and you.**


	5. Raising the curtain

**August 24th, 2017 - Nagasaki Province Tankery Field**

Tom took a deep breath as he sat in the turret of his Comet, all of their work and planning now rested on their shoulders, five novice crews against five of the best teams in the sport, it was like David v Goliath but in tanks, but like David they had a slingshot, namely the quality of their tanks, which compared favorably to their opponent's armor, and in some aspects such as mobility, outright beat them.

"This is Anvil One, Radio check" Tom requested as he adjusted the scarf tied around the lower half of his face, which when paired with the goggles and beret he was wearing, concealed his entire face.

"Anvil Two, ready to roll" Kyla responded from atop her Hellcat, from the tone of her voice she was rearing to go.

"Hammer One here, loaded and ready to hunt!" Marcus answered, there was an ice cool calmness about how he spoke, which steadied Tom's nerves.

"Hammer Two receiving" Gin stated calmly, this surprised Tom as Gin and the rest of the 'Kids' had left him and Kyla concerned, as during their training they had been in a state of near constant panic whenever something new had happened, perhaps they'd found their Zen.

"Furnace copies, and may I just say is really stressed out" Jonas announced nervously, Tom understood exactly why, the entire plan depended on him and his crew doing their job perfectly.

"Calm down Jonas, everything's going to be fine, just remember the plan and it will be ok" Tom replied, he needed Jonas and his crew focused on their job, as one crucial mistake and the plan would fall apart.

"Yeah, you're right, just need to keep my head, thanks, Tom" Jonas concluded, which put Tom and everyone else at ease, finally Tom could turn his attention to his crew, below him in the turret Rob was checking that the ready rack was full of shells, which they were going to be needing, next to him of course, was Matt who was simply sitting there lost in his own thoughts, finally though there was Jacob, and what he was doing was a mystery to Tom, as the drivers compartment was separated from the turret by an internal firewall, which left Jacob all alone upfront, normally there would be a Co-driver/machine gunner to keep him company, but as that position was practically useless, they had not filled it and were using the space for storage, a situation also being repeated in the Hellcat and the Easy Eight. Finally, though the moment arrived as a signal rocket screamed into the sky, signaling the start of the match, "All tanks advance, you know the plan guys" Tom ordered as the Comet roared away, its powerful Meteor engine quickly propelling it to cruising speed, the other tanks falling in alongside, quickly they made for a nearby wood, which they would use to keep the watchful eyes of the spectators obscured, no one was taking any chances, once they were under the trees, the group halted and dismounted before descending on the crusader with branches grabbed from the surrounding trees, had they done this prior to the match starting, everybody would have guessed what the next step was.

* * *

Jonas watched the group of five tanks like a hawk watching its prey, it hadn't taken long to find the compound team, they hadn't been exactly quiet, and so Jonas and his crew had taken up position overlooking the enemy force, using their now fully camouflaged Crusader to observe their progress without being spotted, at the distance they were at, the Crusader looked like any other bush, and with the sun at their backs, there was nothing to reflect off of the binoculars Jonas had been using constantly.

"Anvil 1, this is Furnace, Metal is confirmed heading for point Delta, over" Jonas informed everyone over the radio, confirming them which of the predetermined points the compound team was heading towards.

"Furnace, Anvil 1 copies, all callsigns are standing by at point Delta, move to phase 2, over" Tom replied over the radio, the trap was set, all that was required was a suitable bait, and Jonas knew who that was.

"Copy that, moving to phase 2, over and out" Jonas confirmed as the Crusader moved off, all three of them knew what phase three was, and in their opinion the riskiest part of the plan, firstly they retreated undercover in order to remove their camouflage, before moving ahead of the enemy force, taking up a spot, which whilst not being too obvious, but would still allow them to be spotted by the force, "Ok Lex remember, this has to look convincing, we've got to let them think they've caught us, so remember to drive erratically, and don't open her up fully, we've got to get them to follow" he reminded his driver, if the compound team thought they we're being led into a trap they wouldn't follow.

"I know, I remember the plan, you just make sure they really don't catch us!" Lex retorted, Jonas simply sighed before returning to his binoculars to watch the approaching enemy, his heart skipped a beat as he noticed that only one of the five tank commanders was searching for targets, patiently he watched, his stomach doing somersaults as the five tanks closed on his position, he began to think they were going to miss him when the Sherman's commander, the Team commander of Saunder's finally spotted them.

"They've seen us!, Floor it Lex!" Jonas shouted over the internal system, Lex didn't waste any time, quickly the Crusader shot from its position like a stabbed rat, Jonas however, was still watching the five tanks, and couldn't help but smile as they moved to follow, "All callsigns, Furnace, we have the Metal, repeat we have the Metal, over" Jonas declared, his crew had done their job perfectly, now it was up to Marcus and Gin to bring down the hammer.

* * *

Deep within what should have been an impassible corpse of trees, sat two tanks, both of their guns trained on the open ground before them, like any good artist, Marcus studied the scene before him looking for any sign of life, for the moment there was none, and then with a loud roar Jonas' Crusader burst into view and bolted across the open ground, followed by the five tanks they were up against, before it disappeared into the ditch opposite, which would provide them cover from return fire and if all went to plan, stop the enemy in the open, and like any good plan, that's exactly what happened.

"Alright, target the Tiger 1, range 200 meters" Marcus ordered his gunner and boyfriend an Italian by the name of Luca Ricci, Luca simply nodded as he brought the 100mm gun to bear, next to them, Gin in her Easy Eight did likewise, the priority for them was taking out the enemy's most dangerous tank, and with the accurate and deadly 88mm gun, that was the Tiger 1, and its commander Maho Nishizumi, normally one shot would have been enough, but Tom had told them to make sure it was out of the fight.

"Target sighted, ready to fire" Gin informed him, quickly Marcus looked down to see Luca giving him a thumb's up, signalling he was ready to fire.

"Copy that" Marcus announced, before taking a deep breath to compose himself, "Hammer 2, fire on my mark, in 3, 2, 1, Now!" he ordered and, on his cue, the two tanks opened fire hurling their rounds at the rear of the unsuspecting enemy.

* * *

"Mako-san, get us out of here!" Miho half ordered half screamed as the four remaining tanks of the compound team scrambled to get out of the kill zone, her usual calmness gone, Miho's mind raced, how had they fallen for that trap? the lone Crusader had been too good to be true, quickly she checked her map, confirming that the woods around her were marked as virtually impassable terrain, so the fact Union had managed to get two tanks in there was an impressive feat.

"Has anybody got eyes on those tanks?!" Kay demanded as she scanned the tree's, looking for the attackers who by all logic shouldn't have been there, quickly the three faster tanks passed back through the gap in the tree's, leaving Darjeeling in her slower Churchill bringing up the rear who unlike the other three wasn't zig-zagging due to the tanks lower speed, Miho considered halting in order to cover her retreat but at that exact moment their unseen attackers fired again slamming another two rounds into the Churchill's flat side, it's white flag popping seconds later, and then with a roar, the Crusader reappeared and began to pursue what had moments before it's pursuers, and as Miho noticed, its commander had dropped down into the turret to load the gun, Miho ran the numbers, a Crusader was quick enough to catch up with them, and with its gun being shoulder elevated, was effective at firing on the move, but as long as there was only one of them, they may still have been able to turn the tables on their opponents,

"Left flank, Left flank!" Katyusha screamed as the final two tanks in Unions line-up appeared, and Miho realized exactly how much trouble they were in, they may have been able to deal with the Crusader, but a Crusader, a Hellcat and a Comet were more than they could handle, they couldn't run, as all three of their pursuers were faster than them, and in a 3v3 fight they couldn't use their remaining numbers to focus one down, their only option lay with Kay's Sherman, which was also capable of firing on the move, if they could take out the Crusader before they lost any more tanks, they would still have a chance, and then Union opened fire, the Crusader's first shell fell short, but then the Hellcat opened fire with its shell ricocheting off the rear deck of Katyusha's T-34, followed by the Comet, which scored a direct hit, knocking the T-34 out instantly, Miho could see the surprise on the Katyusha's face as she and her tank it fell out of line belching smoke, clearly Union had planned this out perfectly, lure them in with some convincing and irresistible bait, then take out Maho's Tiger in the ambush, followed by picking off another one as they tried to escape, and finally hunting down the remainder using a force of fast, heavily armed tanks which had clearly been modified to accurately fire on the move.

"Hana, can you fire on the move?" Miho asked, calmness having returned to her voice, while her Panzer IV lacked gun stabilization, she trusted her deadeye gunner's skill.

"Maybe, but we'd need to slow down to shoot" Hana replied, that wasn't an option, Union had already shown their accuracy at hitting a fast-moving target whilst moving, slowing down would only make it easier for them.

"Hey, we've got trouble!" Kay informed her, Miho saw why as two more tanks fell in behind their pursuers, an Easy Eight Sherman and an SU-100 by the length of the tank destroyers barrel, "Where did they get this lot from?" she demanded, Union clearly had good quality tanks, but tanks like these didn't change hands without somebody noticing, but that could wait until after the match, right now they had other concerns, "Ok I have a plan, we'll..." Kay began only to be cut off as the Crusader nailed her Sherman, leaving Miho and her Panzer IV as the compound teams only operational vehicle.

"Hey, they're splitting up!" Yukari announced, in all the chaos Miho hadn't noticed her hanging out of her hatch, but she was right, the Comet, Crusader and the SU-100 had peeled off and were heading away from them, though Miho doubted she'd seen the last of them, leaving only the Hellcat and Easy Eight to pursue them.

"Hana, see if you can give us some breathing room" Miho ordered, it might have been inaccurate, but it would make her feel better to be able to fire back at their pursuers, Hana acknowledged and brought their 75mm to bear on the Hellcat.

"Firing!" Hana declared as the gun barked, sending its round towards the Hellcat, but the Hellcat's crew were on the ball and the driver quickly halted the tank, causing the round to miss, that was ok though as with the Hellcat stationary and the Easy Eight still a good distance behind, Hana had given them some room to breathe, now all they had to do was break contact and hopefully get out of this mess, only for Mako to slam on the brakes, stopping the Panzer dead in its tracks.

"Mako-san, what are you..." Miho trailed off as she saw what Mako had noticed, ahead of them was a short cliff face, and atop of it were the Comet, the Crusader and the SU-100, "Hana target the..." she began only to be cut off her tank was rocked as the Hellcat sent a round directly into the rear of her tank, the white flag popping seconds later.

"Panzer IV eliminated, Union win the match" the radio announced, as Miho rested her head against the edge of the commander's cupola, she felt no anger or sadness in her loss, tankery was meant to be fun after all, that and she had to admire the skill Union had displayed, they had definitely deserved to win.

"Are you ok Miporin?" Saori asked, Miho simply nodded her answer, "Come on then, let's go speak to them" she announced as she climbed out of her hatch, with Miho and the rest of her crew following her out, looking around Miho noted that the Comet, Crusader and SU-100 had disappeared, no doubt retaking the route they'd taken, in order to get back to the Hellcat and Easy Eight, turning her attention back towards the other two tanks in Unions lineup, the Hellcat remained where it had stopped originally, now joined by the Easy Eight, and seeing that Miho and her crew were walking towards them, had also dismounted to meet them.

"Hey, great match" one of the Hellcat's crew announced as she climbed down to meet them, a blonde girl with sky blue eyes and pale skin, her voice had a noticeable American accent "I'm Kyla Blackburn, one of Union's team commanders" she explained, offering her hand to Miho.

"Glad to meet you, Blackburn-san" Miho replied, mentally trying to work out what she be meant by 'one of Union's team commanders' were there two? and who was the other one, if Miho had to guess, she'd have said the Comet commander was the other commander's tank, she didn't know why, it just seemed right in her head, "When can I meet your other commander?" she asked politely.

"Of course, just when the rest of them get back here" Kyla answered, before noticing Yukari practically drooling over the Hellcat, "But in the meantime, we can show you our tanks" She offered, causing Yukari's face to light up like a kid on Christmas morning, Miho couldn't argue with that offer.

* * *

"Christ, how much longer is this going to take?" Matt asked as he sat in the turret, mopping his forehead with the back of his hand, Tom agreed with his gunner, they had been cooped up inside the tank for hours and have had to keep the hatches shut most of the time, the tank had rapidly turned into a sauna.

"Hopefully not much more, It's beginning to smell in here" Tom replied as he took one finally swig from his near-empty canteen, what they were waiting for was confirmation that the papers were signed that confirmed their place in the tankery championship, after which the whole cloak and dagger operation could end, until then though they had to stay out of sight, "C'mon Suki anytime now!" he sighed as he looked at his phone, praying that Suki's message that the plan had worked would appear on screen, looking back up Tom saw that they had nearly rejoined the group, which had now been joined by the rest of the compound team, and still no confirmation, "Ok lads batten down the hatches, and don't let them see any of you" Tom ordered as he pulled the hatch above him shut, fighting every impulse in his body to do so.

"Hey there here!" One girl announced, through the Vision port, Tom recognized her as Kay, the Saunders team commander, causing the rest of the group to begin moving towards them as Jacob brought the Comet to a halt, followed by the Crusader and SU-100.

"Are they not getting out?" another girl answered, who Tom also recognized as Darjeeling, the commander of St Gloriana's, Tom meanwhile felt like his stomach was doing somersaults, Suki was cutting it close.

"Well, there just, umm..." Kyla explained trying to stall for time, only for her phone to suddenly ring, quickly she answered, "Miss Kobayashi how good to hear from you" she answered, mercifully catching everyone's attention, "Oh that's fantastic; yes I'll tell everyone, goodbye" she continued before hanging up and turning back to the assembled group in front of her, "That was Miss Kobayashi, confirming our place in this year's tournament" Kyla announced, which was met with cheers all round, "And that means the Guys can finally get out of the tanks!" she added, which prompted Tom to throw open the hatch like a man possessed.

"Finally, some fresh fucking air" Tom declared, as he pulled himself out of the hatch, as everybody turned to stare at him.

"You're telling me, Gavin's been farting the entire way back, it smells like something died in there" Jonas announced as he and Gavin exited their turret as well.

"I don't know what you complaining about, it wasn't that bad" Marcus mentioned as he and an equally sweaty Luca exited the SU-100.

"You pair had better be sweating because of the heat, otherwise I'm arranging counselling for the rest of your crew!" Tom replied jokingly, prompting a hearty chuckle from the two, followed by the rest of the boys.

"They're, they're..." Saori stammered, interrupting the boy's laughter, she and the rest of the compound team was still trying to process that over half of the enemy team, were male.

"They're Boys!" Yukari exclaimed, which snapped the rest of the compound team back to the present, and then the screaming began.

* * *

 **Authors notes**

 **Sorry this is late, I'm ill and feeling like crap, anyway feel free to express yourselves, and leave me some feedback. Also, my offer of tank names is still ongoing, I've got a few myself, but I'm still open to suggestions so either PM me them, or leave them in the comments.**

 **Edit- ok so the doc manager keeps screwing up, don't know why. Update- as some of you have noticed where it should say 'St Gloriana's' it simply says ''s', I don't know why but when I put a full stop between St and Gloriana's it deletes the word up to the** **apostrophe, so I've removed the full stop to fix it, and am going to go back and correct any other instances of this error, as well as any other errors.**


	6. Talks and Paint

**August 24th, 2017 - Nagasaki Harbor**

It was late in the evening when Tom and the rest of the team got back to their schoolship, partially due to a combination of celebrating their win, with the long drive from the Tankery Field back to the ship, but mostly because they needed to keep prying eyes from seeing some of the other engineering students smuggle some new tanks aboard. Getting out of lead Land Rover, Tom could only stretch, freeing the cramp that had built up during the drive back, Kyla meanwhile could only let out a hearty yawn as she got out as well.

"You need to get some sleep" Tom commented as he watched Jacob park the lead Tank transporter at the base the boarding ramp, with the Comet securely fastened to its trailer.

"Eh, we could all do with some sleep after today" Kyla replied as she looked at the familiar form of their school carrier, based on the cold war carrier HMS Hermes, with the school itself situated where the real carriers ski jump had been, even having been shaped to replicate it, with the roof being a colossal open-air park, "Still, we managed to win 5-0, and the plan went off without a hitch, so today was pretty good" she added as she turned to face him, only to notice something behind Tom and gestured for him to turn around; curious, Tom turned to find some of their opponents walking towards them, and noticing a lack of pitchforks, torches and burning effigies, Tom found no reason to bolt in the opposite direction, scanning the faces Tom noticed a lack of any students from Kuromorimine or Pravada, which was a relief as they hadn't taken the realization they had been beaten by a team made up of half male participants very well, the verbal threats and waving of large tools had been more than enough to illustrate that point, which had only gotten cleared when Shiho Nishizumi had tried to have them arrested for breaking the rules, only to decend into what had been described as a violent tantrum, when Suki had explained that no rules had infact been broken. However the other crews were there in their entirety; Kay looked surprisingly amused amongst her mellow teammates, whilst Darjeeling looked like she was in shellshock, and was practically being Carried by Orange-pekoe and Assam, finally there were the girls from Ooarai, Mako was her usual sleepy self, and Hana was being impossible to read, only showing her normal calm visage, Yukari however, was hanging towards the back of the group of Ooarai girls, glancing between him and Kyla, the tanks, and her friends; whilst Saori was unsurprisingly fidgety, and if Tom or Kyla had to guess, she wanted to speak to some of the boys, and with what they had heard about her, Tom and Kyla could understand why; finally there was Miho, who looked noticeably nervous, which made Tom subconsciously alter his body language to appear less intimidating.

"Can we help you?" Tom asked in a friendly tone, causing the group, realizing they had been spotted to stop in their tracks, glancing amongst themselves to see who would make the first move, Miho looking around her and seeing no one wanted to go first, took it upon herself to break the ice.

"Umm, we just like to, thank you for today's match, Mr. ?" Miho offered awkwardly, offering her hand to Tom.

"Lynch, Tom Lynch and the pleasure is all mine Miss Nishizumi" Tom replied taking her hand and politely shaking it in return, "I hope we can have another match in the future, preferably without having to resort to cloak and dagger tactics" he added.

"Is she ok?" Kyla asked, drawing everyone's attention to Darjeeling, who looked clearly unsettled by something.

"No, she's just processing the realization that not all English men are proper gentlemen" Orange Pekoe explained as she and Assam struggled to keep their commander standing "It isn't helping that she's going to be studying in England this year, and she's wondering if it is what she expects it to be like" she continued, Tom meanwhile had to smother the urge to laugh, the poor girl had clearly fallen for the stereotype of everyone from the UK.

"Ah, well I don't know how to say this, but the stereotypical Brit went out with the empire, and that as I have an older sister at just finished Uni, I can tell you it's not all tea parties and lawn polo" Tom explained, not trying to hurt Darjeeling, but letting her hopes down gently before she got them crushed when she got there, "In fact she told me that the main parts of Uni are writing essays, stressing over said essays, and binge drinking because of the stress caused by said essays, sorry to have to tell you that" he added, causing Darjeeling to suddenly snap out of her daze, her eyes seeming to bulge at this information.

"So, everything I thought about Britain was, false?" Darjeeling asked hesitantly, which Tom answered with an awkward nod, "Ok, well at least I won't have to take the tea set with me" she replied, her face returning to her normal calm expression, which put Tom and Kyla's feelings at ease, the last thing any of them had wanted to do was upset anyone over their little trick, other than pissing off any of the girls who hated the idea of boys competing in the sport.

"Anyway, I'm sure you want to meet the rest of the team, and I'm sure they'd like to speak with some of you too" Kyla announced stepping back towards the rest of the team, who had gathered near the tank transporters to watch the proceedings, with Tom and the remaining members of the Compound team following; Tom mentally reminding himself to make sure that Jonas didn't show anyone the Merlin engine in his Crusader, he preferred to keep that ace firmly up his sleeve.

* * *

 **August 27th, 2017 - Union school carrier**

Tom sighed he stepped out of the changing room, when Kyla had told him about the Firefly, he hadn't expected to have needed to have spent the entire day scrubbing out its filthy engine bay, apparently, whoever had abandoned the tank in the scrapyard, hadn't bothered to drain it of fluids, which over the years had leaked out, creating a thick pool of oil, petrol, coolant and water, which needed removing before any actual work could happen.

"You remember to clean behind your ears?" Marcus exclaimed, as Tom pulled on his favorite leather jacket, one his sister had bought him some years prior for his birthday and had loved since day one, his sister Claire knew him all too well and Tom missed seeing her, it had been over two years since he had seen each other in person and he had one more year to go before he could change that.

"Yes, mom!" Tom replied Jokingly, gently slapping him on the arm as the two started towards the workshop door, taking note of the progress of the work on the Stug IV's suspension, and on the now complete form of a Cromwell tank, salvaged from the two Tom and Kyla had found on their original tank hunting expedition; "Hey you do what I asked?" Tom queried as he locked the empty workshop, everyone else having already left for the day.

"Of course! I took us some time but we got it done in the end" Marcus replied leading him towards the garage, where the five other tanks were stored. "What do you think?" He asked as the two looked at the Comet, which now had the name Huntsman, written in white paint on the front plate.

"As always Marcus, you never fail to amaze me! you write it on the turret as well?" Tom noted, which Marcus replied to with a nod, with Tom moving to take a closer look, "Erm Marcus, what's this? he asked, causing Marcus to move to see what had caught Toms interest.

"Oh that, Luca came up with that one, do you mind?" Marcus explained as the two looked at the insignia now adorning the turret side, a grinning Fox dressed in a huntsman's outfit.

"No, I love it, Luca came up with a masterpiece" Tom commented as he moved towards the Hellcat, which Kyla and her crew had fittingly named Cheetah, which was now written in bright yellow paint down the sides of the hull, noting the snarling Cheetah painted next to it, "Fitting, Kyla did mention about a painting a cheetah on it somewhere" Tom noted.

"Yeah, Me and the guys even agreed on a name for the SU-100!" Marcus informed Tom leading him to the Russian Tank Destroyer, "I was thinking about something Russian, but since Francis is Polish, he wanted something Polish" he explained, noting his Polish driver Franciszek 'Francis' Kowalski, as the two looked at the SU-100.

"Wojtek, what does it mean?" Tom asked, reading the name aloud, slightly confused as to why the bear painted on the side was carrying a shell, whilst smoking a cigarette.

"Oh, I was wondering that as well, it turns out Wojtek is the name of a Syrian bear that a polish artillery company adopted as their mascot, a bear that drank beer, ate and smoked cigarettes, and learnt to carry crates artillery shells just by watching the soldiers, and since the Polish used SU-100's we decided it was a fitting name and went with it" Marcus explained, shortening the story somewhat from what Francis had told him, otherwise they'd have been there a good hour.

"How have I only just heard of this?!" Tom exclaimed, amazed that he hadn't heard this story before, "Anyway what about Jonas and Gin, last I heard they were still deciding on some names for their tanks" he continued turning to where the Easy Eight and Crusader were parked.

"Actually, Gin and her crew finally settled on Bison for a name" Marcus informed him, drawing his attention the illustration of a charging Bison on the side of the hull, with the name written above it, "as for Jonas and his lot, they're still arguing about what to call it, I'd just wish they'd get around to picking one already" he exclaimed angrily, pointing to the still unmarked Crusader.

"Yeah well they've got to come up with one eventually, but there's nothing I can do about it" Tom sighed as he stepped back towards the door, "C'mon its getting late and Luca will want to see you!" he pointed out, snapping Marcus back to the present.

"Yeah, and Kyla will want to see you as well, and I'm not because of the food!" Marcus replied jokingly, receiving a middle finger from Tom in return, at first Tom and Kyla had hated it when people had implied that their close friendship was a relationship, but over the years it had developed into a private joke amongst those that the two socialized with; "Hey being serious for a second, what are we going to do with that?" he asked, pointing to the stripped hull of the other Cromwell, which lay at the back of the garage, the turret of which was now on the other one in the workshop.

"I don't know actually, I'm sure we'll find a use for it" Tom replied as he locked the door behind them before the two parted ways, Tom wasn't actually sure what they could use the other Cromwell hull for yet, and anyway they probably wouldn't need it.

* * *

 **Authors notes**

 **Ok apology time, this one is late, really late, and I have to apologise for it, I've been insanely busy with work covering peoples shifts, and dealing with my family who have been driving me up the wall constantly, I'm not actually too sure about this chapter because I ended up working on this over multiple sittings and kept changing things.**

 **Anyway, I'd like to thank Jayjet777 and the unnamed guest, who posted name suggestions, which led to the names of the Hellcat (Both suggested Cheetah), the SU-100 and the Easy Eight, just a side note to anyone wanting to suggest names don't feel constrained to go with animal names, I know that was the theme in the anime, but I'd like to broaden the variety when naming tanks (E.g. Huntsman), and if you can't think of anything other than an animal name I have no issue them, (I used Jayjet's suggestion of bear, and developed it into Wojtek for the name of the SU-100, the suggestion reminded me of the story), its just I want some variety. If anyone wants to suggest some names, I need names for the following tanks- The Crusader (Priority, I can't come up with anything!), the Firefly, The Stug IV (I might use the German translation if there is one because multinational team), and the Cromwell.**

 **So anyway feel free to give me feedback, I appreciate any I get, and I'll try to get the next chapter to you on time (Hopefully).**


	7. The draw

**September 8th, 2017 - Union school carrier**

It had been over two weeks since Unions now infamous debut match, during which time the school year had officially started, much to the chagrin of many members of the Tankery team for a mixture of reasons, mostly due to a hatred of some the classes they attended, with Tom being no different.

"Hey, Tom have you seen this?" Matt asked, prompting Tom to look up from the very dull biology textbook he had been ordered to read by his science teacher, only to find Matt holding up his phone, showing a page of what seemed to be an online forum dedicated to Tankery.

"looks like a Tankery forum, what about it?" Tom replied, giving in to the temptation and shoving the book back into his bag, the last thing he wanted to be wasting what was left of his lunch on, was a reading about the structure of plant cells, Matt however simply sighed and scrolled the screen back to the top of the page, so that Tom could see the title, which explained everything, "The dishonorable bastards who have perverted our sport, I wonder who that could be?" Tom asked sarcastically as took Matts phone and began reading some of the posts, bursting out laughing at some of the funnier ones, drawing the attention of the several other male members of the team.

"What have you got there Tom?" Gavin asked as he munched on what was left of the feast he referred to as a light lunch, but due to the workout routine he went through, his calory intake made sense.

"Just a forum that some of the girls started about us" Matt explained to the rest of the group, only for Jonas's face to light up like a kid on Christmas morning.

"Really, they're talking about us, probably deciding who is the most attractive out of us, and no doubt talking about what they'll do if they get their hands on us" Jonas exclaimed, receiving curious looks all around, of all the people to make an outburst like that, Jonas wasn't even on the list.

"Not exactly, for example, one of them is saying that if she gets her hands on one of us, she will and I quote, castrate us like cattle and then feed us our balls with spaghetti made out of our intestines!" Tom announced, looking up to see the faces of the men around him, most of whom looked horrified, "Remind me never to accept a dinner invitation from anyone at Anzio" he added dryly, prompting some small bursts of laughter from the few who weren't worried for the safety of their anatomy.

"Sorry Jonas, no luck yet" Lex commented, jokingly patting the German on the shoulder, "don't worry you're bound to run into the right girls sooner or later" he added, as the others began talking about something about more light-hearted, namely what was the plan for tomorrow evening, the reason being that tonight was the teams were being drawn, which was when they'd be finding out who'd they be facing first, not that any of the boys were going, not when most of the Japanese Tankery world despised them, that being said though they were still being represented.

* * *

 **September 9th, 2017 - Sensha-dō national assembly, Tokyo**

There were only a few things Kyla hated, soppy romance films, homework and formal events, and tonight her torture was the latter.

"Do try and look like you're not being held against your will Kyla" Suki reminded her as she and the rest of the group representing Union, walked towards the venue for the 64th National High School Sensha-dō Tournament draw, sighing Kyla tried to look happier, but as she was wearing her full school uniform, she found it difficult, not because she was wearing it, but because she was wearing it properly; normally her shirt would be untucked and her tie wouldn't be strangling her, uniform wasn't strictly enforced at Union, so long as it was being worn there weren't any problems from teachers, "and, look on the brightside, we've got an evening of free food and drink, plus the look on Shiho's face to look forward to!" she added, they stepped inside the venue proper, revealing a vast crowd of students and teachers alike, all of whom turned their gaze on Kyla and the rest of the group as soon as they entered, most looked pissed to see them, but there were a surprising number of friendlier faces.

"Relax, we didn't bring any of the guys!" Kyla announced, which seemed to defuse the situation as the glares of anger seemed to dissipate, however by the muttered swear words, people were still not happy about their little stunt, mercifully the first person to approach them was Miho, followed by the rest of her crew, along with a select few individuals who didn't hate their guts.

"Ah, Blackburn-san it's good to see you again" Miho cheerfully greeted, as she reached the group, looking genuinely happy to see them.

"Glad to see you too Miho, and please call me Kyla" replied Kyla as the two groups met, "and, I'm sorry that Tom couldn't come, but he didn't want people to make his surname literal" she added, explaining the absence of the other of Unions commanders.

"I understand, the others are still upset about what happened, my mother, for example, is furious, she hasn't stopped complaining since the match, even Maho was sick of it" Miho acknowledged, being the daughter of someone like Shiho Nishizumi, Miho understood exactly what Kyla meant.

"Speaking of your mother, isn't she going to be pissed that you're talking to us?" Kyla queried as the group moved deeper into the venue itself.

"My mother isn't actually attending tonight, I heard her say that she doesn't want to even be in the same room as any of you" Miho replied, causing Suki to swear under her breath, she had been hoping to see Shiho, especially since there was nothing she could do to stop Union's participation, something that had left her furious.

"Excuse me Miss Blackburn, Miss Nishizumi, but can I speak with you a moment?" A woman asked emerging from the crowd, and by the fact, she was holding a notepad and pen, and wearing a press pass around her neck, told Kyla she was a journalist, and by her accent, a British journalist.

"Um, sure what can we do for you?" Kyla answered confidently, Miho, however, looked slightly nervous at the woman's sudden appearance, and instinctively grabbed onto the nearest person she knew, that being Kyla, which surprised the American somewhat, Miho was known to be shy, but she hadn't expected her to be nearly panicked by someone unexpectedly asking her a simple question.

"Oh, I'd just like to ask you both some questions regarding the tournament, along with some about how the Tankery world are reacting to Unions participation this year" The woman explained, as she tried to flick open her notepad, only to nearly drop the pad in the process, "sorry, this is my first job, I actually only left University last year" the woman apologized.

"It's no problem, miss?" Kyla replied, as Miho let go of her arm, evidently the fact that the person interviewing them, wasn't a ruthless journalist, but someone fresh out of university had settled the girl's nerves somewhat.

"Burgess, now where should we begin? the draw is supposed to start in a few minutes, and you'll want me out of your hair before that happens" Burgess answered, getting her pad open on a fresh page, Kyla meanwhile didn't seem to mind obliging the woman, and together with a now calmer Miho, answered any questions the woman had for them.

* * *

Whilst Kyla and Miho were answering questions in Tokyo, Tom was sitting in his apartment wondering how he was going to get out of the mess he currently found himself in.

"Tick-tock Tom, we haven't got all night" Marcus grinned as he watched Tom like a hawk, almost certain that he had Tom cornered, and his hand, he was right.

"Fuck it, I call" Tom sighed placing the last of his few chips in the centre of the table, before downing the rest of his bottle of cider, with a five and a seven Tom's hand was crap, but with his lack of chips he was screwed if he did and screwed if he didn't, all folding would have done was buy him another hand, and with his luck it would be another useless pair of cards.

"Well, Toms screwed, What about you Jonas?" Marcus asked turning to the only other player left in the match, who simply smirked before pushing a large stack of chips into the pile.

"I raise, now show me the flop!" Jonas replied, as Jacob, who was serving as the dealer for the game, drew the flop cards, a five of spades, giving Tom a pair, as well as the Queen of clubs and the eight of diamonds, and with all being different suits to his cards, Tom had no a chance of a straight, he was totally screwed.

"I see your raise, and add some more!" Marcus replied, both of them trying to get the other to blink first, with Jonas silently matching Marcus's bet moments later, followed by Jacob drawing the turn card, a Two of spades causing, Marcus to smirk before pushing his entire pile of chips into the centre of the table.

"All in!" Marcus declared, giving Jonas an all-knowing grin, either he had a good hand, or he was bluffing like hell, Jonas, however, was guessing the latter and shoved his entire pile in as well.

"Ok Marcus, what ya got?" Jonas countered as he turned over his hands, revealing the king of hearts, and the queen of diamonds, giving him a pair of queens with a king kicker, only for Marcus falter slightly before turning over his hand, revealing the seven and queen of spades, which as it stood gave Jonas the pot and the game, but the river card had yet to have been played, and if it was another spade or another seven, Marcus would get either a straight or two pairs, either of which would beat Jonas's singular pair. Tom meanwhile knowing he had no hope, got up in search of another beer, glancing at the TV that the rest of the lads, who hadn't been playing cards were watching, which was the main reason that they were at Tom's as it was showing the live coverage of the Tankery draw, the only reason that Tom and some of the other boys had decided to play a game of Texas hold'em, was that it had been nothing so far but two hours filler content, broken up with the odd expert opinions, and they'd gotten bored and decided to do something to pass the time.

"I can't believe you won't let me play!" Lex commented as Tom lifted a bottle of cider out of his fridge, technically at only seventeen Tom shouldn't have been able to get alcohol in Japan, but with his surprisingly full beard for someone his age and a fake I.D, he'd found a way around the issue.

"Lex, that's because you are a known card counter, and whilst we aren't actually playing for money, we not still not stupid, or drunk enough to let you play with us!" Tom replied as he popped the cap, and took a quick swig of the strawberry flavoured alcohol, only to jump slightly as shouting broke out.

"WHAT THE FUCK!" Jonas and Marcus both shouted, catching everyone's attention, as the pair began swearing profusely as Tom quickly walked back to the table to see what was the matter.

"What's got you two so pissed?" Tom asked, only to receive angry glares from the pair of them, fortunately, Jacob was on hand to explain, when he stopped laughing of course.

"They, they didn't like the river card!" Jacob chuckled, drawing Toms attention to the now revealed river card, a five of hearts, giving Tom three of a kind, the pot and the game, seeing this Tom did the only logical thing, and burst out laughing as well.

"Hey will you guys quieten down, it's starting!" Gavin announced, causing the four to move back over to the TV just as the screen cut to the draw itself.

"Hey, anyone know when we're drawing our spot? Matt asked as Tom and the others sat down to watch, as the first draw was made by Emi Nakasuga for Bellwall, who with the expanded number of teams this year, had rejoined the sport as one of the stronger new teams, with Emi drawing the number 23 slot.

"Not till later, I think we're one of the last ones" Tom replied as another representative went forward, this one from a school Tom had never heard of before, "At least we'll know who we're fighting!" he added as the girl drew the number 19 slot, this was going to take a while.

* * *

Kyla's stomach felt like she had butterflies as she watched the draw take place, finally though the moment came for her to draw Unions spot, and so she forced any fear to the back of her mind, put on a brave face and made her way to the stage, receiving a few words of encouragement, which were barely audible over the boo's she was getting, she could only wonder how bad it would have been if Tom had come.

"Miss Blackburn, when the light turns green if you could please reach into the box and take the selected card, then hold it aloft so that the cameras can clearly see it," An official asked her as she reached the stage itself, which she answered with a nod before stepping over to the box in question, noting the sound of the motor which span the cylinder containing the numbered cards designating the slot number, abruptly the motor stopped and noting the green light, Kyla reached in and grasped the card the machine had given her, and after taking a deep breath, pulled it out of the box and held it up so that everyone could see, resulting in some surprised gasps followed by some alarming cheers, and Kyla quickly glancing at the card revealed why.

* * *

"And Union has drawn slot 13, meaning they will face Pravada in the opening round!" the TV announced, leaving all of the boys speechless, up until Luca voiced his opinion.

"FFFFUUUUUUUCCCCCKKKKKK!" Luca screamed as the room descended into volleys of swearing, with Tom being no exception.

* * *

 **Authors notes**

 **Sorry this one is a bit late, I'm suffering from extreme writer's block (and maybe a bit of sleep deprivation).**

 **Anyway I've received some great names regarding the Crusader, Firefly, Stug IV and Cromwell, which I will be deciding upon for the next chapter, but if you have any suggestions I'm still open to them, (I've decided to give it about the time it takes to get two chapters done, just so everyone has the opportunity to submit some).**


	8. Planning and Practice

**September 11th, 2017 - Union school carrier**

Tom was over the next few days, to him the knowledge that he and the team were going to be fighting Pravada, a former champion who had broken the nine-year winning streak of Kuromorimine, abet only because Miho had focused on saving a tank crew from drowning, which in Toms opinion the correct thing to do. At first he thought it was an insurmountable odd to overcome, Pravada was one of the toughest teams in the sport, routinely reaching the final only to be stopped by Kuromorimine's heavier armour, even the match against Ooarai last year didn't fill him with confidence, after all the result of that match was a mixture sheer luck and skill; or so he had thought as when he looked closer at that match, and then all the previous matches led by Katyusha, he noticed a few trends which were in every match, and these trends made Pravada predictable, and these it was this predictability he planned to exploit.

"Tom, you in here?" Kyla asked as she entered, causing Tom to glance up from his desk, where he'd been going over a book on Russian armour for the millionth time, Kyla looked worn out, her hair was a frayed mess and her eyes were red from lack of sleep.

"You look like shit, shouldn't you be getting some sleep?" Tom pointed out as Kyla collapsed on his couch, technically she and the others should have been back the night before, but due to a series of delays and cancellations hadn't arrived until that evening.

"Eh, I'll get some in a bit, but first I thought I'd check and see how you guys got along without us" Kyla responded as she straightened a strand of hair which had fallen across her face "Although, by the amount of empty bottles and cans, I can get an idea!" She added gesturing to the bag of empties that Tom had yet to dispose of.

"Actually that's all from the night of the draw, we've actually been pretty busy getting set for the match, we've got the Firefly, Stug and Cromwell up and running, and we're starting to look for people to crew them" Tom explained, surprising Kyla as the three tanks had still been in pieces when she'd left with half the team for Tokyo "and I've been going over Pravada's previous matches and I've noticed a few things!" He added grabbing a notepad he'd been working from "Now when you think of Pravda's standard line up, what comes to mind?" Tom asked.

"Well, T-34's mostly, maybe the IS-2 if they need a big gun, oh and they do bring that KV-2 sometimes" Kyla responded, causing Tom to smile slightly.

"Wrong, they bring that KV-2 every time! every match since Katyusha took over the team, the KV-2 has been in the lineup, no matter if it is useful or not, and you want to know why?" Tom explained starting to get excited, and as Kyla knew when Tom started to get excited, he had either come up with something brilliant or mad, " It's because of Katyusha's height issues, or rather her Napoleon complex!" he elaborated, causing Kyla to facepalm, this one was definitely the latter.

"ugh, seriously you're saying the only reason she brings that tank, is because she's short!" Kyla sighed disappointedly as she got up to leave, Tom however simply rolled his eyes before continuing, clearly, Kyla hadn't worked it out yet.

"Hear me out, it's the tallest tank she's got and it's practically useless in anything other than bunker busting, she constantly feels the need to be taller than her opponents, normally by sitting on someone's shoulders, and it's not the first time her personality has affected her strategy" Tom pointed out, causing Kyla to sit back down and gesture for him to continue, "Well, there's her arrogance for starters, she always goes out of her way to try and humiliate her opponents, Bonple were tricked and then annihilated without losing a single tank, Viking tried to use buildings for cover, but Katyusha found a use for her KV-2 by having it just shell them with impunity, and then rush them, and it was her ego cost he the match against Ooarai, instead of simply using her KV-2 to demolish the building like she did with Viking, she tried to make them surrender, which backfired when Ooarai broke out of her trap and cost her the match, she always thinks she's better than everyone else" he continued, Kyla meanwhile was starting to get an idea of what Tom was talking about, whether she liked it or not remained to be seen, "But that isn't even the biggest issue, it's that she refuses to listen to anybody but herself, think about it, she runs the entire school like a dictator, anybody who goes against her wishes gets punished, which coupled with her childish nature and the amount of unchecked power she has, nobody but a select few dare speak out against her any of her decisions, those few being Nonna and Klara, and Nonna left for University last year" Tom elaborated.

"So? she still has Klara, and she's just as good as Nonna" Kyla pointed out, Tom however simply nodded in agreement, she had a point, but he had a counter.

"Yes, but Klara is Nonna's replacement now, and since Katyusha is going to be bringing the IS-2, we know which tank she's going to be in, and that means we can take her out!" Tom countered, before leaning forward to emphasize his next point "and then with a lot of carefully used provocation, we can use Katyusha to our advantage" he added.

"What do you mean by 'advantage'?" Kyla asked, knowing full well where this was going, but liked the sound of it all the same, especially as Tom explained one of the reasons behind the cancellation of something called Operation Foxley.

* * *

 **September 27th, 2017 - Union school carrier**

It was a peaceful morning on the training field until the deafening bark of the Firefly shattered the tranquillity, Tom however wasn't concerned with the noise, but the blast wave that rocked the Comet.

"Fucking hell Flash, park further away next time!" Tom shouted at the Firefly commander, an Australian called Gordon Hart, who like his tank had earned the nickname Flash, him for his name, and his tank for the business end of its gun.

"Yeah sorry about that Nigel" Gordon replied, jokingly using a slang name for an Englishman, Gordon wasn't actually an engineering student like most of the core original members, but a maths student, and a brilliant one at that, which had made him an ideal choice for the firefly, as he was able to calculate long distance shooting down to the centimetre, which when paired with a weapon like the 17-pounder, made a deadly combination.

"Yeah, Yeah, just park further away next time Bruce!" Tom reminded as he looked at the other new tank, the Stug IV now named Sturmbrauer, which Jonas had told him meant Storm Brewer, a dramatic name which ironically fitted as the Assault gun was being crewed by some of the girls from the drama society, who had decided to officially join the team after the match a few weeks prior, they were under the command of another Englishwoman, Martha Cosgrove, who had been the one to organise the fake crews in the first place, her reason for joining was that as she'd had so much fun pretending to be a tank commander, she'd decided to actually be one, and despite coming from a group that was known to shy away from getting their hands dirty, she had been getting stuck in with the rest of the team with the maintenance, then again she was known to be a method actress, "Hey Marth, hows the Stug?" he asked as he heard Gordon move the firefly further away from his Comet.

"She is a darling, I have not had a single issue since she breathed her first breath" Martha replied, which translated into English, meant the was perfect and that she'd not had any issues, another thing Martha was known for was using overly elaborate words when she spoke, which some had tried to explain as being a result of her upper-class upbringing, which contrasted against Tom and Gavin, who came from working-class backgrounds.

"Right... has anyone seen Jonas? he's meant to have been here already" Tom continued, Jonas was many things, a speed freak, a crafty cards player, and as of a few weeks ago, a hopeless romantic, but what he wasn't normally was someone who was late, normally he was on-time for everything, so being late was highly unusual.

"I think they stayed behind to help Freya's driver with Adamant" Marcus explained, referring to Freya Hansen, the Cromwell's Norwegian commander, who like all the other new crews, wasn't from the technical department, she was a geography student, who had only joined because she had nothing else to do, but some had joked that the only reason she'd joined was because she had heard that Emma was Swedish, and that had triggered the age-old rivalry between the twos home countries to form between the two, that and the fact that they argued enough to make Tom want to drink, "that and the fact they don't want to spoil their new paint yet!" he added, but before Tom could ask what he meant, the Crusader came into view, followed by the Cromwell, and immediately Tom could see what Marcus meant, as now there was the drawing of a crusader knight riding a stallion.

"How many weeks did it take you to come up with that one!" Tom shouted as Jonas pulled up, with Freya pulling up alongside.

"Hey, what's wrong with Knight?" Jonas replied, sounding slightly annoyed that Tom was taking the piss out of his tanks name, Tom however was quick to clarify what he meant.

"There's nothing wrong with it, just that you took longer than the rest of us, we even had the new tanks named before you came up with that!" Tom explained, but before Jonas could get in a rebuttal he continued "I presume you had better things to be doing, such as writing soppy love letters!" he added jokingly, prompting some bursts of laughter from those who got the joke, Jonas however simply sighed and gave Tom the middle finger.

"Ha fucking ha, anyway what have you dragged us out here for?" Jonas asked, only for Tom to direct his attention to the distant targets, each having been set at different distances determined by the averages of all the tanks different effective firing ranges.

"Just some gunnery practice, don't want to drop the new guys in at the deep end" Tom answered before turning his attention back to his tank "speaking off which Matt if you'd please!" he ordered, with Matt answering by putting a round straight through one of the long-range targets.

* * *

 **Authors notes**

 **Sorry that this one's late, I'm a bit tied up for time at the minute, I'm starting Uni soon so I have a lot of stuff to sort out first. But anyway I've tried to split the names evenly again, so I hope you don't mind.**

 **As usual feel free to comment and review and I'll see you next time.**


	9. War of words

**October 7th, 2017 - Aomori Prefecture Tankery Field, Preparation area**

Union's preparation area was a scene of organized chaos, shells were being loaded, fuel tanks were being filled and last-minute maintenance was being performed.

"And to think, they only started a few months ago" Suki commented to the woman standing next to her as they watched from the doorway.

"Mmh, very impressive if I must say so" Burgess replied as she took a few photos of the crews at work, "Do you mind if I speak to some of them?" she asked, only to receive a warm smile from Suki.

"Oh, go right ahead, you were the only one who doesn't have an agenda against us" Suki replied, referring to all the journalist's who'd been trying to make them look like villains in the media, unlike Burgess who had been actually supportive of them, much to the annoyance of Shiho Nishizumi who seemed to be leading the charge against them.

"Thank you, Miss Kobayashi" Burgess thanked as she made her way towards the Hellcat and the Blonde girl perched upon it.

"Oh, hello Miss Burgess" Kyla greeted as pulling off her gloves before she dropped down from the Hellcats engine deck

"Hello, Kyla, how everything going" Burgess replied as Kyla moved to stand with her and Suki.

"Oh, whilst you're here, you have to meet someone" Kyla exclaimed as she led Burgess deeper into the garage, past the rows of tanks until they reached the familiar form of the Comet, where they were greeted by the sight of Tom sifting through the storage bin on the back of the turret "Tom that journalist mentioned is here" she explained.

"Uhuh, little bit busy for a chat" Tom replied as he dug further into the bin, however, what nobody saw, was the sly grin forming on Burgess's face.

"Oh Tommy, what would mum think if she saw you now?" Burgess remarked, resulting in looks of confusion from Kyla, Suki and everyone else around her, and the sound of Tom hitting his head as he quickly pulled himself out of the bin.

"Claire?" Tom asked as he turned, rubbing his head where he'd hit it, Burgess however simply grinned before replying.

"Hello little brother, how have you been?" Claire asked, prompting Kyla to do a double take, now she could see both of them, she could see the family resemblance, both had the same brown colour hair, both had dark blue eyes, and both had similar shaped faces.

"What are you doing here? and why are you using mums maiden name?" Tom queried as he climbed down, before pulling off the upper part of his olive-green coveralls, revealing an old black T-shirt underneath.

"Um, working, I got headhunted for a sports magazine out of university, and when I heard about you, I got them to send me here" Claire responded as she held up her press pass "and I couldn't go around using my normal name, Hi I'm Claire Lynch, perhaps you've heard of my younger brother; they'd refuse to talk to me if they knew I'm your sister" she added, her argument was pretty sound, "Now for something, I've wanted to do for the last three years" Claire added before pulling Tom into a tight hug, prompting a gasp like sound from Tom as the air was forced from his lungs.

"Can't breathe!" Tom wheezed, prompting Claire to loosen her hold on him, and now he could breathe Tom was free to return the hug, "I've missed you too Claire" he added, as everyone milled around awkwardly.

"All team Captains to the assembly point in twenty minutes!" The PA system announced, prompting a sigh from Claire.

"I guess that's you" Clarie noted as she let go of Tom, who looked slightly annoyed at the announcement himself.

"Yeah, hey we'll talk after the match proper" Tom suggested before turning to leave, heading in the direction of the portable cabin that Union had brought for the male team members to change in, he'd need to change out of his overalls before the match, and pick up a few props as well.

* * *

Kyla sighed as Tom brought the Land Rover to a halt before turning off the engine.

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Kyla asked as they got out, noting that Pravda still hadn't arrived yet.

"Of course, it'll help later on" Tom replied as he put on a pair of dark aviator sunglasses, and adjusted the scarf around his neck, "Just remember if she goes after me, I am leaving you behind" he added prompting a sigh from Kyla, before smirking slightly as the iconic form of a Katyusha rocket truck came into view, mentally becoming the persona he, with the help of Martha, had concocted ever since they'd hit upon the plan, fittingly named Operation: Infuriation, "show time!" Tom noted, as Katyusha and Klara got out of the truck, a look of pure hatred on the little girl's face, this was going to be easy.

"So, you are the one the great Katyusha will be beating today" Katyusha exclaimed, only for Tom to look around, as if trying to work out where the noise was coming from, before grabbing a pair of binoculars and putting them to his face.

"Oh, there she is" Tom noted, before leaning closer to her "she's tiny!" he exclaimed prompting a growl from Katyusha.

"Show some respect to your betters!" Katyusha barked, Tom however simply smirked as he lowered the binoculars.

"She really makes up for her height with her mouth" Tom stated as he glanced at Kyla, who was doing her best to act like she was trying to keep a straight face, both had to play a part in this charade, Kyla was silent witness/sidekick, and Tom was playing the part of the antagonist.

"Silence! when I am finished with you, I will be taking that SU-100 from your unworthy hands!" Katyusha snarled, Tom, however, sensing an opportunity, went one further.

"Ok shorty, but if we win, we get one of your tanks!" Tom smirked, ignoring the glare from Kyla, that hadn't been part of the script, Katyusha, however, decided to bite.

"A deal then, I look forward to crushing you!" Katyusha spat, as the match officials decided to wade in and stop to two throwing insults at each other.

"Please, can you refrain from antagonising each other" the lead judge stated, reigning the pair in "now we will start the match between Pravda Girls High School and Union Technical High School, all athletes, bow" she added, as the four followed the instruction and bowed to one another, before turning to leave.

"What the hell Tom, you just bet the SU-100 what if we lose!" Kyla whispered angrily, Tom however simply smiled before answering.

"Relax Kyla, if everything goes to plan, we'll be adding another tank to our roster" Tom replied as he climbed back into the Land Rover removing his glasses as he did so, "anyway Katyusha's right where we want her" he added, he wasn't wrong, everything was going according to plan.

* * *

 **Authors notes**

 **Sorry this is late, I've had a bad week, anyway I'd like to thank one of the guest reviewers who suggested Katyusha trying to get the SU-100, it helped solve an issue I've been having with a future tank so I've stuck it in there. Anyway, feel free to comment and review as usual.**


	10. Let battle commence

**October 7th, 2017 - Aomori Prefecture Tankery Field, Preparation area**

Claire watched with anticipation as the teams sat in their starting positions, Pravda and their uniform force of T-34's with an IS-2 and KV-2 in support, compared to the mixed bag of tanks and tank destroyers that made up Unions force, it looked like David vs Goliath, but if anyone had a slingshot up there sleeve, she'd have put money on her little brother.

"It looks like it's going to be an interesting match, Miss Burgess," Suki commented, using Claire's pen name so that people being nosey wouldn't realise that the journalist covering the sport, was the older sister of the captain of the most hated team in the league.

"Looks that way Miss Kobayashi," Clarie replied as the signal rocket went off, followed by a distant cheer as the Pravda fans saw their tanks begin to move, Union, however, were less inclined to cheer, and who could blame them, their first match was against a former champion.

* * *

"Full power, full power," Tom ordered as the Comet roared away, with Kyla's Hellcat, Jonas's Crusader and Freya's Cromwell falling in behind. "All right people you know the plan," he reminded everyone as Marcus, Gin, Martha and Gordon split off from the others.

"Gun 1 copies Beater 1, good hunting!" Marcus replied as he and the other three tanks disappeared from sight, leaving the four fast tanks to sprint away.

"Ok Beater's you have your search areas, signal when you have located the birds!" Kyla added as they all split up to head for their assigned areas, there was only so much ground that Pravda could cover with the KV-2 and IS-2 slowing them down, and against the faster tanks of Union, that made the job of finding them that much easier.

* * *

Katyusha grinned evilly as she surveyed the terrain around her; first, she would find Unions force, then she would crush it into the dirt beneath her, followed by the cocky Englishman that commanded them.

"Any sign of them?" Katyusha demanded, only to receive negative responses "Useless! all of you are useless, none of you deserve me!" she barked angrily.

"Patience Katyusha, we will find them eventually," Klara noted as she watched from the IS-2's cupola, Katyusha however simply huffed without replying, Klara had slotted into the space left by Nonna almost perfectly, and as such she gave the Russian the respect of not back chatting her. What no-one had noticed during this exchange, was the 75mm gun barrel poking out of a bush about 100 metres away, nor at the Norwegian perched above it.

"Hallo Beater 1 this is Beater 4, we have the birds! repeat we have the birds, they're a mile north of point 122, over," Freya reported quickly, as Pravda drove past, oblivious to the nightmare Union had in store for them.

"Copy Beater 4, Beaters 1 through 3 are on route to point122, RV there for phase 2, over," Tom answered as he and the other tanks headed for the RV point, no doubt Marcus and the others had heard the message and were getting ready for phase 3.

"Roger Beater 1, Beater 4 copies over and out!" Freya replied as her driver, one of the boys from the geology department backed the tank away slowly, being careful not to disturb the vegetation as he did so.

* * *

Kyla watched the path below him, listening as the steady rumble of engines grew closer, they had chosen a spot using the reverse slope of a hill to conceal most of their tanks, it wasn't perfect though, as anyone but an idiot could see it was a perfect ambush spot.

"Ok guys, you have your targets were getting only one shot here!" Tom reminded everyone, they were only going to get one chance to pull this off before Pravda spotted them and returned fire, and being outnumbered 2-1 they didn't want to stand and fight.

"Roger, Cheetah is ready for the shot" Kyla replied as she glanced down the firing line, to her right was Tom in Huntsman, to her left slightly further away were Freya in Marauder and Jonas in Knight. At that moment the lead elements of Prvada came into view, formed up in a loose diamond shape, with the Pravda's flagtank, a T-34/76 surrounded by a trio of the better T-34/85's, denying them a clear shot, unlike Union who were deliberately using Huntsman as the flagtank, just to make sure they'd go for the bait. However, Union weren't after the flagtank, neither were they after Katyusha herself either, their targets were the two larger tanks bringing up the rear of the formation, the KV-2, Katyusha's favourite, and slightly further away was Klara in potentially deadly IS-2.

"Hold, Hold," Tom cautioned, holding their fire until the right moment, "NOW!" he barked, followed by Huntsman's 77mm going off, followed milliseconds later by Cheetah and in turn Knight and Marauder, as the firing went down the line, the former pair sending their rounds at the thicker skinned and distant IS-2, the later at the larger KV-2.

"Gotcha!" Jonas shouted as the KV-2 and IS-2 came to shuddering halts, two rounds embedded in their sides, and white flags flying from their turrets, the T-34's, however, were quick to react, bringing their 85's and 76's to bear on Union, but Unions drivers were quicker, having already begun backing their tanks behind the hill the second their gunners had opened up, giving Tom only a few seconds to send give Katyusha a 'friendly' wave.

"Did you see Katyusha's face?!" Freya asked smugly as the tanks turned and roared out of cover, coincidentally giving Pravda a clear view of them, but not enough time to turn back and fire at them.

"Like she had sucked a lemon!" Tom replied as the four tanks began following a predetermined route to where they were going to spring phase 4, "Gun team, this is Beater team, we've stirred the birds and they're heading towards you, hope you're ready at the other end" he announced over the radio, gesturing for Robert to pass a message for him with hand signals, as a shell whistled past at a comfortable distance, against weaving, distant, fast-moving tanks, Pravda had little chance of hitting them, especially as they were pursuing at full speed themselves.

"Gun team copies Beater, keep those birds airborne and good luck, over and out" Marcus replied as Jacob slowed Huntsman slightly, just keeping it within sight of Pravda, but outside of the effective range, with the other drivers doing likewise.

"Ok guys phase 3 is now a go, aim of the game is keeping us out of shooting range but still in sight of them" Kyla reminded everyone as the Tanks sped up again, and began to open the range again.

* * *

"Can none of you shoot! all of you are useless!" Katyusha screamed as she watched shells miss Union's tanks for the umpteenth time, the other commanders stayed silent, without Klara to reign her in, Katyusha had lost any control of her temper and was verbally lashing out at everyone for anything. "When I catch them, I will ring their puny necks" she snarled as her eight remaining tanks pursued Union. Union were no doubt expecting her to split her force to try and outflank the faster Union tanks, no doubt leading to one-half's destruction by the other tanks in Union's line-up, of which there were at least two, or by both at the same time. Katyusha, however, wasn't falling for it, she would keep her tanks together and annihilate them when they made a mistake, and as they were approaching a wood, with a river in it, that mistake would come soon.

"Alright, people, full power and remember to de-clutch, and I'll see you on the other side" Tom ordered as the four tanks roared into the forest, and began to race down a slope towards the river, each tank spreading out in order to hit their mark.

"Here's hoping they did their job properly!" Jonas remarked as they sped towards the 20ft shallow river, which would be suicide to drive through and not just because Pravda was on their heels. Which was why Guns had spent the entire match so far, preparing four dirt ramps for the tanks of Beater team to use, after all, it was only an issue if they drove through it.

"Well here's hoping they skimped on yours's Kyla shot back as she grabbed onto the turret ring for dear life, as the tanks hit the ramps at full speed, launching them over the river and onto the dirt opposite, and as their drivers had all remembered to de-clutch before landing, all of them roared away safely over a bank and into the trees, just as Pravda came into view, having not seen anything at all.

"Quickly through the river, they can't be far!" Katyusha ordered as the T-34's raced down the hill, and into the river. Unfortunately, what Katyusha and Pravda had failed to realise, was that this river in question had steep banks made up of loose shingle, which when wet, which Gun Team had also ensured, and having wet steel tracks run over them, offered no grip for the T-34's, meaning that Pravda's tanks were stuck in the river with no cover. "What are you doing?!" Katyusha screamed as she watched a tank slid back into the river. Only to receive a reply from an unexpected source.

"Realising that they should have brought Geology students along" Tom mused as he emerged from behind a tree, "and a Mathematician who has friends who are good at physics" he added as Katyusha glared at him.

"How dare you gloat! what are you even doing" Katyusha barked as her teammates looked on nervously, Tom, however, smiled as the other three commanders of Beater team emerged from the trees.

"Simple were offering you a chance to surrender!" Tom replied, taking personal joy in telling Katyusha, someone who only a year prior had done the same to Ooarai, that she was now the one cornered "I'd take it, after all, you're surrounded" he pointed out gesturing to the other 4 tank commanders of Gun Team on the opposite side of the river.

"Go to hell, you English pig!" Katyusha screamed, less in anger and more in fear of having the tables turned on her, Tom however simply shook his head before he and the other commanders revealed the smoke bombs from behind their backs.

"Suit yourself" Kyla noted as they hurled the smoke bombs amongst Pravda's tanks, creating a thick cloud of smoke none of them could see out of, before heading back to their tanks as they emerged from concealment, weapons pre-trained on the smoke, "You might want to batten down the hatches!" she called as she slid into the cupola of her Hellcat, before all hell broke loose, at the range Union were at, and with the concentration of targets, they couldn't miss.

"Katyusha, what do we do?!" A Pravda tank commander pleaded as shells rained down on them, Katyusha, however, had nothing, all her ego, her brashness, her temper had been stripped away, all she could do was listen as her team was demolished around her.

"Screw this, anyone, who wants to survive head down the river!" One commander ordered, finally taking charge, normally Katyusha would have torn her to pieces, but she was in no state to give orders, and so her driver, acting on her own incentive followed the T-34/85 and the flag tank in their desperate escape, the other five tanks, however, either too scared to listen, or already knocked out stayed where they were, and fell under Unions guns.

"Hey three of them are making a break for it!" Gorden shouted as the smoke began to clear, revealing the five knocked out T-34's who'd stayed put, finding the remaining three climbing out further downstream, where the banks were shallower and made of dirt.

"I see them, Gun team get after them, we'll cross further down and catch up" Tom replied as Union, smelling blood moved to pursue, Pravda meanwhile were scrambling to escape, T-34/76 flagtank being the fastest had moved ahead, leaving Katyusha's T-34/85 at the back of the trio. But just when Katyusha started to think they might have escaped, shells began to fall around them once more and Gun team chased after them, with even the Stug IV and Su-100 firing on the move, joined moments later by Beater team who joined in on the shooting, the three T-34's tried to stave off the inevitable by weaving, but that only bought them moments as Unions gunnery showed itself once again as a shell slammed into the other T-34/85, followed moments later by Katyusha's, who couldn't bear to watch as her flagtank, the last tank still operational in Pravda's line up was struck in the rear of the turret and began to slow, a white flag flying from its turret.

* * *

 **Authors notes**

 **So, after taking November off to recharge my batteries, I'm back, normal service will now resume.**


	11. Building Bridges

**October 7th, 2017 - Aomori Prefecture Tankery Field**

"All Pravda tanks eliminated, Union takes the match!" the Announcer stated with a noticeable tremor in her voice. The spectators, however, remained silent at this news, still trying to process the fact that Union had pulled off a clean sweep, and then all celebratory hell broke out amongst the small contingent of Union supporters, even Claire, who was trying to remain anonymous couldn't resist the urge to grin, she'd been right to trust Tom, who in her mind was wearing the biggest smile possible.

* * *

Tom wasn't smiling, below him, his crew were patting themselves on the back for a job well done, and rightly so in Tom's mind, everyone had done their jobs perfectly, but it wasn't his or the team's actions during the match that was troubling, it was his actions before the match, which had come back to haunt him in the form of Katyusha, sobbing her eyes out next to her tank, with Klara trying to comfort her as her other teammates argued amongst themselves. Finally, Tom couldn't watch any longer and made a decision that defied all sane logic in him.

"Jacob, keep the motor running just in case this goes sideways!" Tom asked as he climbed out of the tank, not noticing the confused words from his crew, he was more concerned with the death stares he was getting from Pravda, especially from Klara. Tom meanwhile simply held his hands up to signal he came in peace, which seemed to stay the rest of Pravda from attacking him, before he turned to face Katyusha, who hadn't looked up the entire time, being more focused with crying. "Um, hey, I'd just like to apologise for acting like a dick earlier, I was trying to wind you up so you'd fall for our trap, and I guess I overdid it" he admitted awkwardly, receiving no reply from the girl in question, who simply sniffled briefly before crying again.

"It's okay Katyusha, why don't we go back to the ship and I'll make you a nice plate of beef stroganoff," Klara offered as she tried to pull Katyusha into a hug, still giving Tom a glare, clearly his words had fallen on deaf ears, Katyusha, however, simply glared at Klara for this suggestion.

"No, I'm not hungry, I don't want anything!" Katyusha cried as she pushed Klara away, as Tom stood awkwardly, weighing up if he should keep apologising, or simply cut his losses and head back home.

"But you haven't eaten anything since last night, and even that wasn't much," Klara reminded her, but Katyusha wasn't listening, however, Tom was listening, and quickly did a mental recap on Katyusha, she was a lot shorter and looked much than someone her age, and was extremely childish, all common signs of something he'd learned about in Biology class back a few years prior, and up until this moment, had forgotten about. "You need to eat more, it isn't healthy," she continued, as Katyusha stared back at her, oblivious to Tom, who was having a light bulb moment.

"Does she not eat much?" Tom asked, getting both Katyusha and Klara's attention, with the former glaring at him, and the latter giving a confused look, before shaking her head, answering his question. "Well it's a well-known fact, that if a teenage body doesn't eat enough food, it can lead to a condition called delayed puberty, which means the body doesn't develop" he explained, getting confused looks from everyone around him. "One of the most noticeable traits of this condition is that the person, doesn't undergo growth spurts," Tom continued, a friendly smile forming on his face, mentally reminding himself that not everything in Biology had been useless.

"Wait, are you saying that if I eat more food, then I can be..." Katyusha began, pausing as she looked at Tom with wide-eyes. Tom, however simply nodded in response, prompting a childish squeal from the girl as she leapt forward and hugged the larger Englishman, any signs of anger or sadness gone in the blink of an eye. Meanwhile Kyla, who had been watching the proceedings from her Hellcat, mentally breathed a sigh of relief.

"You what this means?" Eve asked, causing Kyla to turn her gaze to Eve and Macey, who were still in their seats in the turret "Macey owns me money" she noted dryly as she gently shoved the Frenchwoman next to her, prompting an annoyed sigh from Kyla as she flopped back on the tanks thin roof.

* * *

 **October 7th, 2017 - Pravda school carrier, storage deck**

"You know, I think Tom wasn't being serious about the bet," Freya commented as the girls were led into a large storeroom deep inside Pravda's schoolship.

"Well, after what your friend told Katyusha, she insisted on honouring the wager," Nina commented as she turned on the lights, revealing rows upon rows of Tanks.

"I hope you find something useful in here, we haven't inventoried the place in years, so we don't know what's in here," Alina added as she pulled out a pair of old chairs, for her and Nina to sit and wait on as the girls looked for a tank to take.

"Thanks, we'll call if we need you" Kyla replied as she and the other girls began to search amongst the tanks for something useful. Unfortunately, the garage was stocked with an endless stream of either rusted out T-34's that were too far gone to be salvaged, tanks that were too old for use, such as some fairly decrepit looking MS-1's that Gin found near the back of the garage, or tanks that weren't suitable to the style of fighting that Kyla and the team were going for, namely mobile and hard-hitting tanks, which had ruled out a few KV-1's and even the hull of a rare KV-3 that had been stashed with some T-50's in one corner of the room.

"Is there anything here that's actually useful?" Emma asked Kyla as the Hellcat's crew perched on top of a rusted out Su-152, as they watched Gin and the other second years look over the odd form of a rare BT-SV parked nearby, or so the book on Russian tanks that Tom had lent Kyla told her.

"Not by the looks of it," Kyla replied as she scanned the room, looking for anything that stood out to her, and was about to consider seeing if there was any chance of salvaging one of the T-34's when she spotted a pile of wooden crates stacked against the back wall. "Hey, has anyone checked those crates before?" She asked as she drew Emma's attention to the crates in question.

"I don't think so, wanna check them?" Emma replied, Kyla simply responded by getting down from the SPG and heading towards the crates, followed by Emma, Eve and Macey, passing by rows of T-70's, and BT-2's.

"Any Idea what's in them?" Eve asked as they finally reached where the crates where located, Kyla however simply shrugged before trying to read the words printed on the side of one of the crates, only to find that the only markings on the crate were in Russian.

"Anyone know what this means?" Kyla asked as she pointed to the Cyrillic text, which read '100-мм пушка Д-10Т' and beneath it 'Завод № 75, Харьков', but since none of them could read Russian, the text was just shapes to them, Kyla however, wasn't giving up so quickly, and the number 100 followed by the letters MM, had caught her attention, and so she grabbed a crowbar that had been laying nearby, and pried the lid off, revealing the familiar form of a 100mm gun, like the one off of the SU-100. Kyla her interest now piqued turned her attention to one of the larger crates, again the markings that would have told her its contents were in Russian, but that second line of Russian text was present, and so she quickly walked over to a second crate and opened it, finding a largely rounded turret, like what she'd seen on a T-34-85, only larger. Quickly she fished out the book again and began searching for any tank that had that turret, only to grin when she did.

"Hey Kyla, care to share?" Macey asked as she, Eve and Emma looked at the turret, prompting Kyla to hand the book to her as she mentally laughed herself silly, Pravda mustn't have had a clue what they'd had lying in these crates all these years.

"Erm Kyla, slight problem here," Eve cautioned, getting Kyla's attention, "I don't see a crate big enough for the rest of it!" she pointed out, Kyla meanwhile looked at her crewmates awkwardly, before Emma sighed walked towards where she'd seen some tools.

"I'll find some more crowbars" Emma exclaimed, as Kyla let out a depressed sigh, this was going to take a while.

* * *

 **Authors notes**

 **Writer's block is the bain of my existence. Sorry, this one is late, I've re-written this chapter a few time until I was happy.**

 **Also, I'll be surprised if anyone guesses the tank correctly.**


	12. Rusting beasts and Scattered pieces

**October 7th, 2017 - Aomori**

Whilst Kyla and the girls were aboard Pravda's school ship, extracting their prize from the hull without anybody but them knowing what it was. Tom and the boys were up to their armpits in metal, digging through a scrapyard just outside Aomori, with, limited results.

"It's all fucking junk!" Matt shouted as he threw a rusted engine cover shut on the decaying remains of a D1 tank, before hopping down next to Tom. "Why the hell are we even here? why can't we just buy a new tank?" he asked, prompting a sigh from Tom.

"Because none of the people who make the tanks are willing to sell them to us," Tom began as he and Matt headed towards a cluster of rusted out M3 Stuart hulls "We can buy replacement parts, even major components, but because of the rules Japan has all sales of tank hulls have to be approved by the governing body, who if you'll remember, hate us!" he continued as the pair found Marcus, Luca, Francis and their loader, a Japanese student by the name of Daiki Tanaka, looking at the sorry remains of a pair of Churchills, whatever models they had been were lost under the years of rust and decay.

"Anything good? because we have fuck all!" Marcus asked as he and his crew moved to meet them, receiving a shake of the head in reply, "Crap, we're hoping one of you would have better luck," he sighed as they all began to head deeper into the scrapyard, trying to see if anyone else had found something useful, only to find Robert, Jacob and the rest of the boys had all had the same idea and had all ended up clustered around the form of a turretless hull of some sort of Panzer II.

"Anything, or are we out of luck?" Tom asked, prompting grunts from the others, all apart from Jacob, who unlike the rest of the boys, looked pleased with himself.

"Well we found this, shes in decent nick and just needs the parts, and before you say anything, yes I know its a Panzer II, but if you'd pay attention to the suspension, you'll find this is a Panzer II Luchs!" Jacob explained. Whilst the Panzer II was a lousy tank to fight in compared to most of the armour fielded by the other teams, the Luchs was probably the only version that Tom would say had a chance of being useful, as whilst the vehicle was useless against enemy armour, it was fast, manoeuvrable and small, making it a decent scouting tank, something that Union could make a use of.

"Not bad, I mean I'd have loved a bigger cat personally, but she could be useful, has Jonas checked the..." Tom began looking to see where Jonas was amongst the crowd, only to trail off when he failed to see the Germans slightly chubby face, "Where the hell is Jonas!?" he shouted, causing some confused looks from the other boys.

"I saw him a minute ago, I think he said he was going to look behind one of the piles for something useful," Freya's driver, an American called Joseph O'Connor explained, in his thick Boston accent.

"Jonas! where are you?" Tom bellowed, trying to get a response from the missing German.

"Calm down, I'm coming," Jonas finally responded from behind a pile of scrap metal, Tom simply rolled his eyes and began to head to where he'd heard Jonas, finding a gap in-between two different piles, and was about the go through and get him, when Jonas came through first, "Scheisse, you walk off for 5 minutes without getting shouted at!" he announced as he passed Tom.

"Ahem, did you find anything useful?" Tom asked, reviving an annoyed sigh from Jonas in response.

"Unless you're interested in a tank, with half a turret, no engine, and partially collapsed suspension, then no!" Jonas answered before he moved off to sit with Gavin and Lex, who like most of the other boys had taken a seat until Tom or anyone with an idea told them to do something. Tom meanwhile was just about to accept defeat, take the Luchs and leave, but at the last second, he decided to glance through the gap to exactly what Jonas had told him about, finding a tank matching Jonas's description, except that the German had missed out a few small details and one rather big one.

"Would somebody please smack Jonas for me!" Tom ordered, receiving confused looks from everyone, and a growl from Jonas.

"What now, I told you everything you need to know!" Jonas replied angrily, only to receive a 'are you being serious' face from Tom.

"Yeah except you missed out a few things, firstly it might have half a turret, but still has a gun, secondly It's hull isn't damaged, and finally and most importantly of all, it's a fucking Panther!" Tom bellowed.

* * *

 **October 7th, 2017 - Union school carrier**

It was early evening when Tom and the boys got back to the ship, having spent a few long hours extracting the Panther from behind the pile of scrap, and at least 10 minutes taking the piss out of Jonas for somehow not recognizing a Panther tank. But now all they wanted to do was put their new acquisitions into the workshop and go home, but as they opened the workshop doors, they found the girls standing around arguing, with what appeared to be a lot of metal lying on the floor.

"What the hell is going on?" Gorden asked out loud, getting the girls attention, who immediately turned their fury on the boys.

"Where the hell have you lot been, we've been trying to work out how to put this thing together, and you lot have been doing what exactly?" Eve demanded, prompting annoyed sighs from the guys and several of the girls, clearly Eve was in a foul mood.

"Oh just digging a Panther out from behind a mountain of scrap, and may I ask why we have a metal jigsaw on the floor?" Tom replied non-chalontly and was about to receive an earful from Eve, when Kyla, who was significantly calmer, stepped in.

"Well, we were trying to work out how to put our prize from Pravda together? but there are no instructions and we don't even know if we have all the parts," Kyla explained, as the rest of the boys, bar Tom started to unload the hulls of the Luchs and the Panther from the tank transporter.

"Right, and we have a?" Tom asked, not being able to work out the tanks identity from the bits, Kyla, however, was quick to answer, handing him the book he'd lent her on Russian tanks, gesturing to a specific image.

"I don't know how they had one, or why they haven't used it, but unless we're very much mistaken we have managed to find a T-44B, aka the T-44 with the 100mm gun later used on the T-54!" Kyla announced, a smile creeping over her oil covered face.

* * *

 **Authors notes**

 **Good news everyone, I've gotten around to writing this chapter. March turned into a mess of essay writing and sleep problems, but its Easter break now, so I have some free time to catch-up.**

 **Anyway, names are up for grabs, I look forward to your suggestions.**

 **Also, I wasn't expecting everyone to nearly nail down the T-44's identity so quickly, so that was interesting.**


	13. Cat trouble

**October 9th, 2017 - Union school carrier**

Tom gave a heaty grunt as he and Jacob lifted the engine covers on the Comet before they began the arduous process of checking the engine for wear and tear. It had been over 24 hours since Unions win against Pravda, and whilst the few fans Union had managed to attain were still celebrating, the team had gotten back down to the task of preparing their tanks for the next match the following month, in addition to augmenting their line-up, the focuses of which effort were on getting the Panther and the Luchs operational and with crews trained for both, before the end of the month. With work on the jigsaw that was the T-44-100 being put on the metaphorical back-burner until later.

"Oh for fuck's sake!" someone shouted angrily causing Tom to sigh before he turned to Jacob.

"You think you can handle this for a minute?" Tom queried, receiving a nod from the Dane as an answer, "Right, call Rob or Matt if you need a hand, I'll see what the shoutings about," he advised before he hopped down off the Comets engine deck and began to head over to where he'd heard the shouts. Finding the source to be from the growing group of concerned people gathering around the Panther's stripped hull, with the sound of muttered swearing coming from inside its hull. "Right whats the issue then?" Tom asked, bringing a halt to the swearing, as the source of the noise, which turned out to be a rather annoyed looking Joseph, popped his head out of what had been the driver's hatch.

"Well some fuckers the top of the hull thicker than it should be!" Joseph angrily responded, receiving some confused looks "It's 25mm's instead of 17!" he shouted as he hauled himself out of the hatch, allowing Tom access to see the problem.

"Fuck," Tom whispered, as he measured the steel plate in question, before turning to the assembling crowd, now joined by Kyla, "It's too thick, and if the Judges or worse Shiho Nishizumi finds out about it, we could be in trouble" he explained. He wasn't sure if it was a serious issue, but when they had people actively looking for ways to disqualify them from the championship, it was better to air on the cautious side of things.

"So, you want us to grind it back? because it'll make it so that we can't field her for the match next month," Joseph asked, prompting Tom to take a deep breath before answering. On the one hand, the book on the Panther G, which the remains of the turret and the exhausts had identified it as, stated the hull top was meant to be 17mm's thick, but on the other hand, the book was going off of the blueprints, for all he knew this could have been a late war version that had used thicker steel for some reason, what he needed was someone who actually knew something about history, and then he remembered something.

"No, hang fire on that, me and Kyla are going to check with some people first, just to make sure" Tom responded before gesturing for Kyla to follow him as he made his way to the door.

"And who are we checking with?" Kyla asked curiously as the two stepped out of the workshop, and began to head towards the main building.

"Well, when in doubt, call the history buffs and pray they have an answer," Tom replied, silently wondering what exactly he should expect to find.

* * *

It took the pair about 20 minutes, three flights of stairs and asking at the school office for directions to find what they were looking for, but finally, they found the room they were looking for, and after taking a moment to compose themselves, Kyla knocked on the door and waited for someone to answer it, only to be met by something they weren't expecting when it opened.

"Ja?" The girl who answered the door asked, catching the pair off-guard, the girl was called Brunhi Zauner, a person who wore battered AC DC t-shirts had black hair with Red highlights, who listened to rock music and tended to talk to anyone in a cold, distant tone. Of all the people that they'd expect to be a member of the history club, she was the last person.

"History club?" Tom asked, expecting to be told they had the wrong room and to have a door slammed in his face.

"Ja, that's us, what do you want?" Brunhi replied as she leant against the door and gave the pair a bored look.

"Right, well we have a tank that's giving us some issues and we were..." Kyla began, only for Brunhi to cut her off.

"Wait, a tank? what model is it?" Brunhi asked, with a hint of intrigue in her voice.

"A Panther, we think its a G model, but were unsure about some things," Tom explained, only for a grin to appear on Brunhi's face, before she leaned back into the room.

"Hey I'm just going to pop out for a bit," Brunhi explained to someone inside before stepping outside and shutting the door behind her, "Show me," she asked.

* * *

Upon seeing the Panther, Brunhi had produced what Kyla would describe as a 'joyful squeal' before starting to clamber all over the tanks hull, muttering things rapidly in German as she did so, so fast that even Jonas couldn't understand her. Finally, though she clambered down from the hull, not noticing the dirt and oil that coated her hands before she began to speak.

"It isn't a Panther Ausf G, it's a Panther Ausf F, a fairly rare variant that was designed in the dying days of the war in Europe, it had a thicker hull roof of 25mm's and steel-tyred road wheels. You were misled by the G Turret and the exhausts, both of which were fitted to the vehicle. However the G turret was never intended for the Ausf F, instead, it was fitted due to a lack of Schmalturm turrets, which the vehicle was intended to carry," Brunhi explained rapidly, before pausing to catch her breath.

"So a different style of turret and road wheels, what else can you tell us about it?" Tom asked as he processed Brunhi's speech, however, Brunhi simply sighed before asking.

"Nein, I am afraid that is up to you to find out, I must be getting back to my fellow historians," Brunhi replied giving the Panther one last pat on its sloped side before she turned to leave, "But I will tell you to do some digging on the Luchs, there might be something that may be useful. Auf Wiedersehen," she added, only for Kyla to speak up suddenly, having remained quiet the entire time.

"Wait, what if we offered you something for your continued help?" Kyla offered, making Brunhi pause before she reached the door.

"And what could you offer me that would interest myself?" Brunhi replied, prompting all eyes to be on Kyla.

"Well, it might be of interest to you, that there is a certain tank in our force in need of a commander, someone who knows all about the tank's strengths and weaknesses, preferably someone who will appreciate it," Kyla answered, before gesturing to the Panther F's hull. Brunhi however simply paused to think about the offer.

"Well with an offer like that, there's only one thing I can say" Brunhi began, only for a smile to creep over her face, "When would you like me to start!" she grinned.

* * *

 **Authors notes**

 **Sorry for the gap between chapters, I took a break from writing for a while because I was feeling burnt out.**

 **Anyway names for Panther and Luchs are needed, so leave your ideas and I'll have a look at them.**


	14. Debates and Dinner

**October 13th, 2017 - Union school carrier**

Kyla let out a yawn as she opened the door to her apartment, it had been another long day, a mixture of tedious school work, followed by exhausting mechanical work fitting the Panther with a new engine, per Brunhi's rather 'interesting' specification, and training said Panther's new crew in how to actually maintain and use the thing. Although with their tank still being in pieces, they had been forced to use some of the other tanks as training vehicles, namely Huntsman, Bison and Sturmbrauer as they had the closest characteristics to the Panther out of any of the other tanks in Union's current lineup. At that moment Kyla's phone went off in her pocket, prompting a sigh as she pulled her phone out of her pocket, finding Tom's name on her screen.

"What is it, Tom? unless you're calling to tell me you've changed your mind on those burgers you said you'd do, then you had better have a good reason for bothering me," Kyla began, prompting a sigh of exasperation from Tom.

"Turn your TV on, and go to channel 3, you're going to want to see this!" Tom replied, Kyla meanwhile, simply rolled her eyes before doing as Tom asked, only to find a news interview on her screen, with a familiar face on the screen.

"...so Miss Nishizumi, earlier today, you stated that you're intentions to have the rules Senshado changed to prohibit male participation in the sport from next year onwards, why this course of action?" the host asked, as Kyla resisted the urge to swear.

"The course of action is necessary to preserve the core values of Senshado, which these male participants are polluting with their vile and underhand tactics and methods. For example less than a week ago, the captain of Pravda highschool, the winner of the 62nd National Tournament was reduced to tears, after the individual known as Tom Lynch, used deceitful and dishonourable tactics in order to cheat Pravda out of a win that in my opinion, they deserved more than their opponents" Shiho replied, taking particular care to say Tom's name with as much spite as possible.

"Is she serious?" Kyla asked as she watched the host begin to formulate a reply.

"Probably, knowing her reputation I wouldn't be surprised if she isn't a follower of the Scum manifesto," Tom answered, just as the host came back with her reply.

"Miss Nishizumi, your statement has prompted some backlash from multiple journalists, and has resulted in one anonymous article being published online just before this interview, which pointed out that you have also gone or record as being against extending the cap on vehicles in Senshado, past 1945, and are currently blocking a reform that would do so. Yet critics have labelled this move, and I quote 'an attempt to prevent other schools from obtaining equipment that could challenge Kuromorimine's position as a championship-winning school', this of course comes after your first move when taking over Kuromorimine and its position on Japan Sensha-Dō Federation's governing body, which was to force through a reform which extended the cap to as it is currently, after which Kuromorimine went on to win nine consecutive tournaments until, the incident two years ago, and has therefore made allegations that your actions now, as they have in the past, are motivated by a desire to have Kuromorimine retain its position of power, and not as you said to 'preserve the core values of Senshado', how would you respond to this allegations?" the host replied, as Tom burst out laughing, Shiho meanwhile, in Kyla's impression, simply looked like a deer caught in headlights, before she got up, removed her microphone and stormed off the stage. "Well that's all we have time for, I suppose now its time for the weather where you are," the host continued, unfazed by her guest's speedy exit, meanwhile Kyla was clutching her sides, as the muffled sounds of Tom, laughing his ass off came over the phone.

"Oh my god, she wasn't expecting that!" Kyla exclaimed as she managed to turn off the TV, despite being unable to see properly due to how hard she was laughing.

"And the best part is, I have a sneaking suspicion I know who wrote that article they referenced!" Tom cackled, prompting a new batch of laughter from Kyla.

"Oh please let it be your sister, that would be perfect!" Kyla chuckled, if anyone was to be responsible for putting Shiho in her place, it was a good bet that Claire was it.

"If it is, remind me to buy her something nice for Christmas, she deserves it!" Tom replied as he finally stopped laughing.

"So, about dinner, is the curry still on?" Kyla asked, changing the topic back to the subject of what Tom was cooking for dinner.

"Well after that I'd say I fancy a takeaway, but since we're all having one when we watch Ooarai's match tomorrow evening, I'd say yes to a curry," Tom answered, before remembering something, "oh and that reminds me, we have to work out whos crewing the Luch's in our next match against Saunders," he added.

"Oh christ, I'd forgotten that, hey isn't it a little strange we have to fight them right after Pravda?" Kyla noted, prompting a sigh from Tom.

"Are you kidding! Our side of the tournament table has Pravda, Saunders, St Gloriana and Kuromorimine, it being a strange coincidence is mildly putting it," Tom replied, taking a second to compose himself "So yeah, I'll be around in about an hour," he continued.

"Right, that gives me just enough time to do the dishes you graciously left for me to do last night," Kyla replied, glancing at the still dirty plates from last night, sitting on her counter.

"Which I would have done, except you somehow spilt sauce in your hair and insisted on taking a shower, which meant I had to leave before I could do them" Tom pointed out.

"You could have stayed you know, I do trust you" Kyla replied as she began running some water into her sink.

"I know that but what would the children have thought?" Tom countered, prompting a chuckle from Kyla.

"Touche! Oh and don't wuss out on the spice, I like it spicy!" Kyla jokingly reminded him before hanging up and starting on the pots.

* * *

 **Authors notes**

 **So the next few chapters are going to be more character-focused as I haven't really fleshed out anyone except Tom yet.**


End file.
